By WAI MOE
Burma’s opposition National League for Democracy has set three conditions for participation in the 2010 general election—the unconditional release of all political prisoners, amendment of any provisions in the 2008 constitution “not in accord with the democratic principles” and an all-inclusive free and fair poll under international supervision.
The conditions were agreed on at a two-day special national party meeting that ended in Rangoon on Wednesday.
The NLD said in a concluding “Shwegondaing Declaration” that it would also have to study the election law and party registration law before deciding whether to participate in the planned 2010 poll.
The NLD nevertheless accepted that elections were a landmark on the country’s journey to democracy, the statement said.
“At present, the ball is in their court and we have to wait and see their response,” NLD leader Win Tin told reporters after the meeting. “The NLD will not drop out of the political game.”
Observers who read the three-page declaration said the NLD’s conditions had not differed from policies already adopted before the meeting and rejected by the junta—the release of political prisoners, a review of the constitution, genuine dialogue to resolve Burma’s crisis and recognition of the 1990 election result.
“I do not think the Shwegondaing Declaration is any different from the NLD’s previous stance,” said Aung Moe Zaw, chairman of the Democratic Party for New Society, based in exile.
Two conditions—the release of political prisoners and amendment of the constitution—were quite sensitive for the junta to consider, however, he said.
Since the junta announced that its constitution had been approved in a 2008 referendum, it has rejected any possibility of amending the constitution, which reserves 25 percent of parliamentary seats for military officers and grants the military permanent leading role in Burmese politics.
Junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe said on Burma’s Armed Forces Day in March declared that it was “necessary to refrain completely from undermining the Constitution that has been adopted by the people.”
On the question of political prisoners, the junta often denies it is holding any. The country has a known number of more than 2,100 political prisoners, however, and the number of arrested dissidents has doubled since August 2007.
In late 2008 and early 2009, thousands of prisoners were granted amnesty, but only a few political prisoners were among them.
Although the junta is not expected to agree on the NLD’s conditions for joining the 2010 election, the international community’s approach is quite similar to the NLD’s.
The Council of the European Union (EU) said on April 27 that the political and socio-economic challenges in Burma “can only be addressed through genuine dialogue with all stakeholders, including ethnic groups.”
The EU Council called for the release of all political prisoners and detainees in Burma, including NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as a credible, transparent and inclusive process in the 2010 elections.
The US policy on Burma is similar to the EU’s. Robert Wood, a US State Department spokesman, said on March 24 that the US was disappointed that the Burmese regime continues to ignore the calls of the international community, including the UN Security Council, to release political prisoners immediately and unconditionally.
“We once again urge the Burmese authorities to release all political prisoners and initiate a genuine dialogue that can help move the country forward,” he said.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, currently chaired by Thailand, also called for the release of Burmese political prisoners and an all-inclusive political process at its 14th summit on February 27- March 1.
Win Min, a Burmese analyst in Thailand, said the NLD declaration was quite practical because it included the party’s position on the 2010 elections.
“Now the NLD started talking about its stand on the election. Now they have strategy for the election. So we can say they are pragmatic,” he said.
April 30, 2009
US Praises Asean, UN for Facilitating Cyclone Nargis Aid
By LALIT K JHA
WASHINGTON — The US State Department on Wednesday paid tribute to the work of the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in helping bring relief to the victims of the 2008 Cyclone Nargis.
In a statement on the eve of the first anniversary of the cyclone, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said: “This provision of assistance would not have been possible without the work of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the United Nations, which have facilitated the entry of humanitarian assistance and aid workers over the past year through the Tripartite Core Group.”
The US alone has provided nearly $75 million in humanitarian assistance to the survivors of the cyclone.
“We also acknowledge the unfailing work of many non-governmental organizations that provided vital aid and assistance,” Wood said, adding the hope that the Burmese junta would continue to permit the international community to provide post-cyclone relief.
“We express our firm hope that the Burmese government will continue to allow the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the Burmese people in the affected area, and will also allow expanded access for assistance needed elsewhere in the country,” Wood said.
“As we recall the Nargis tragedy, we also express our hope for a better future for all of Burma's citizens,” he said.
The State Department statement also offered condolences to families who lost loved ones in the cyclone. “We also honor the bravery and sacrifice of the Burmese people who have worked tirelessly alongside the United States and the international community to help their neighbors attempt to rebuild their lives,” Wood said.
WASHINGTON — The US State Department on Wednesday paid tribute to the work of the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in helping bring relief to the victims of the 2008 Cyclone Nargis.
In a statement on the eve of the first anniversary of the cyclone, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said: “This provision of assistance would not have been possible without the work of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the United Nations, which have facilitated the entry of humanitarian assistance and aid workers over the past year through the Tripartite Core Group.”
The US alone has provided nearly $75 million in humanitarian assistance to the survivors of the cyclone.
“We also acknowledge the unfailing work of many non-governmental organizations that provided vital aid and assistance,” Wood said, adding the hope that the Burmese junta would continue to permit the international community to provide post-cyclone relief.
“We express our firm hope that the Burmese government will continue to allow the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the Burmese people in the affected area, and will also allow expanded access for assistance needed elsewhere in the country,” Wood said.
“As we recall the Nargis tragedy, we also express our hope for a better future for all of Burma's citizens,” he said.
The State Department statement also offered condolences to families who lost loved ones in the cyclone. “We also honor the bravery and sacrifice of the Burmese people who have worked tirelessly alongside the United States and the international community to help their neighbors attempt to rebuild their lives,” Wood said.
US Will Not Lift Sanctions on Burma
By THE IRRAWADDY
The United States is not considering lifting sanctions against Burma as part of a review of policy toward the military government, Agencie France Presse (AFP) reported on Wednesday, quoting a letter by a State Department official.
Richard Verma, the assistant secretary for legislative affairs who handles relations between the State Department and Congress, wrote a letter to Republican Congressman Peter King saying reports that the US would lift sanctions were "incorrect."
According to the AFP, Verma said: "The sanctions that the United States and other countries maintain against the regime are an important part of our efforts to support change in Burma."
"While we are currently reviewing our Burma policy, we can assure you that we remain committed to delivering a firm message on the need for real reform, including the initiation of a credible and inclusive dialogue with the democratic opposition and the release of political prisoners," Verma said.
During her visit to Asia in February, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States was reviewing its policy of sanctions against Burma's government.
"Clearly, the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta," she said, adding that the route taken by Burma's neighbors of "reaching out and trying to engage them has not influenced them, either."
Her comments triggered an intense debate about what policy approach toward Burma might prove most effective.
In March, Stephen Blake, the department's director of Mainland Southeast Asian Affairs, flew to Burma's capital of Naypyidaw and met with Foreign Minister Nyan Win, as the administration of US President Barack Obama continued to review the Burma policy of former President George W. Bush.
In July 2008, the US signed into law the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE (Junta’s Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act 2008. The act has three aims: to impose new financial sanctions and travel restrictions on the leaders of the junta and their associates; to tighten the economic sanctions imposed in 2003 by outlawing the importation of Burmese gems to the US; and to create a new position of “US Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma.”
Recently, the European Union (EU) renewed its economic sanctions on Burma for one more year, during a foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg.
The EU said it would continue to work to establish an open dialogue with Burma’s ruling generals. It also called for the junta to conduct a genuine dialogue with opposition and ethnic groups.
The United States is not considering lifting sanctions against Burma as part of a review of policy toward the military government, Agencie France Presse (AFP) reported on Wednesday, quoting a letter by a State Department official.
Richard Verma, the assistant secretary for legislative affairs who handles relations between the State Department and Congress, wrote a letter to Republican Congressman Peter King saying reports that the US would lift sanctions were "incorrect."
According to the AFP, Verma said: "The sanctions that the United States and other countries maintain against the regime are an important part of our efforts to support change in Burma."
"While we are currently reviewing our Burma policy, we can assure you that we remain committed to delivering a firm message on the need for real reform, including the initiation of a credible and inclusive dialogue with the democratic opposition and the release of political prisoners," Verma said.
During her visit to Asia in February, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States was reviewing its policy of sanctions against Burma's government.
"Clearly, the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta," she said, adding that the route taken by Burma's neighbors of "reaching out and trying to engage them has not influenced them, either."
Her comments triggered an intense debate about what policy approach toward Burma might prove most effective.
In March, Stephen Blake, the department's director of Mainland Southeast Asian Affairs, flew to Burma's capital of Naypyidaw and met with Foreign Minister Nyan Win, as the administration of US President Barack Obama continued to review the Burma policy of former President George W. Bush.
In July 2008, the US signed into law the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE (Junta’s Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act 2008. The act has three aims: to impose new financial sanctions and travel restrictions on the leaders of the junta and their associates; to tighten the economic sanctions imposed in 2003 by outlawing the importation of Burmese gems to the US; and to create a new position of “US Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma.”
Recently, the European Union (EU) renewed its economic sanctions on Burma for one more year, during a foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg.
The EU said it would continue to work to establish an open dialogue with Burma’s ruling generals. It also called for the junta to conduct a genuine dialogue with opposition and ethnic groups.
Burma Named Worst Online Oppressor
By THE IRRAWADDY
Burma is the worst violator of Internet freedom of speech rights in the world, says a leading media watchdog group.
World Press Freedom Day this year is Monday, the day the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) officially names the world's worst Internet oppressor, which is recognized as an emerging threat to freedom of speech and the press worldwide.
"Burma leads the dishonor roll," said the CPJ in its report. "Booming online cultures in many Asian and Middle East nations have led to aggressive government repression."
With a military government that severely restricts Internet access and imprisons people for years for posting critical material on the Internet, Burma is the worst place in the world to be a blogger, the CPJ said in the report "10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger."
The CPJ said that bloggers and online journalists were the single largest professional group unjustly imprisoned in 2008, overtaking print and broadcast journalists for the first time.
China and Vietnam, where burgeoning blogging cultures have encountered extensive monitoring and restrictions, are among Asia’s worst blogging nations, said the report.
Relying on a mix of detentions, regulations and intimidation, authorities in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Egypt have emerged as the leading online oppressors in the Middle East and North Africa.
Cuba and Turkmenistan, nations where Internet access is heavily restricted, round out the dishonor roll on the CPJ list.
Along with censorship and restrictions on print and broadcast media, Burma has applied extensive restrictions on blogging and other Internet activity, the CPJ said.
According to the Internet research group OpenNet Initiative, private Internet penetration in Burma is only about 1 percent and most citizens access the Internet in cybercafés where military authorities heavily regulate activities.
The government, which shut down the Internet altogether during a popular uprising led by Buddhist monks in 2007, has the capability to monitor e-mail and other communication methods and to block users from viewing Web sites of political opposition groups.
At least two Burmese bloggers are now serving long prison sentences.
Blogger Maung Thura, popularly known as Zarganar, is serving a 35-year prison term for disseminating video footage after Cyclone Nargis in 2008.
Nay Phone Latt, 28, is serving eight years and six months in Hpa-an Prison in Karen State for infringement of several acts governing computer use.
Burma is the worst violator of Internet freedom of speech rights in the world, says a leading media watchdog group.
World Press Freedom Day this year is Monday, the day the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) officially names the world's worst Internet oppressor, which is recognized as an emerging threat to freedom of speech and the press worldwide.
"Burma leads the dishonor roll," said the CPJ in its report. "Booming online cultures in many Asian and Middle East nations have led to aggressive government repression."
With a military government that severely restricts Internet access and imprisons people for years for posting critical material on the Internet, Burma is the worst place in the world to be a blogger, the CPJ said in the report "10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger."
The CPJ said that bloggers and online journalists were the single largest professional group unjustly imprisoned in 2008, overtaking print and broadcast journalists for the first time.
China and Vietnam, where burgeoning blogging cultures have encountered extensive monitoring and restrictions, are among Asia’s worst blogging nations, said the report.
Relying on a mix of detentions, regulations and intimidation, authorities in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Egypt have emerged as the leading online oppressors in the Middle East and North Africa.
Cuba and Turkmenistan, nations where Internet access is heavily restricted, round out the dishonor roll on the CPJ list.
Along with censorship and restrictions on print and broadcast media, Burma has applied extensive restrictions on blogging and other Internet activity, the CPJ said.
According to the Internet research group OpenNet Initiative, private Internet penetration in Burma is only about 1 percent and most citizens access the Internet in cybercafés where military authorities heavily regulate activities.
The government, which shut down the Internet altogether during a popular uprising led by Buddhist monks in 2007, has the capability to monitor e-mail and other communication methods and to block users from viewing Web sites of political opposition groups.
At least two Burmese bloggers are now serving long prison sentences.
Blogger Maung Thura, popularly known as Zarganar, is serving a 35-year prison term for disseminating video footage after Cyclone Nargis in 2008.
Nay Phone Latt, 28, is serving eight years and six months in Hpa-an Prison in Karen State for infringement of several acts governing computer use.
Burma Named Worst Online Oppressor
By THE IRRAWADDY
Burma is the worst violator of Internet freedom of speech rights in the world, says a leading media watchdog group.
World Press Freedom Day this year is Monday, the day the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) officially names the world's worst Internet oppressor, which is recognized as an emerging threat to freedom of speech and the press worldwide.
"Burma leads the dishonor roll," said the CPJ in its report. "Booming online cultures in many Asian and Middle East nations have led to aggressive government repression."
With a military government that severely restricts Internet access and imprisons people for years for posting critical material on the Internet, Burma is the worst place in the world to be a blogger, the CPJ said in the report "10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger."
The CPJ said that bloggers and online journalists were the single largest professional group unjustly imprisoned in 2008, overtaking print and broadcast journalists for the first time.
China and Vietnam, where burgeoning blogging cultures have encountered extensive monitoring and restrictions, are among Asia’s worst blogging nations, said the report.
Relying on a mix of detentions, regulations and intimidation, authorities in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Egypt have emerged as the leading online oppressors in the Middle East and North Africa.
Cuba and Turkmenistan, nations where Internet access is heavily restricted, round out the dishonor roll on the CPJ list.
Along with censorship and restrictions on print and broadcast media, Burma has applied extensive restrictions on blogging and other Internet activity, the CPJ said.
According to the Internet research group OpenNet Initiative, private Internet penetration in Burma is only about 1 percent and most citizens access the Internet in cybercafés where military authorities heavily regulate activities.
The government, which shut down the Internet altogether during a popular uprising led by Buddhist monks in 2007, has the capability to monitor e-mail and other communication methods and to block users from viewing Web sites of political opposition groups.
At least two Burmese bloggers are now serving long prison sentences.
Blogger Maung Thura, popularly known as Zarganar, is serving a 35-year prison term for disseminating video footage after Cyclone Nargis in 2008.
Nay Phone Latt, 28, is serving eight years and six months in Hpa-an Prison in Karen State for infringement of several acts governing computer use.
Burma is the worst violator of Internet freedom of speech rights in the world, says a leading media watchdog group.
World Press Freedom Day this year is Monday, the day the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) officially names the world's worst Internet oppressor, which is recognized as an emerging threat to freedom of speech and the press worldwide.
"Burma leads the dishonor roll," said the CPJ in its report. "Booming online cultures in many Asian and Middle East nations have led to aggressive government repression."
With a military government that severely restricts Internet access and imprisons people for years for posting critical material on the Internet, Burma is the worst place in the world to be a blogger, the CPJ said in the report "10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger."
The CPJ said that bloggers and online journalists were the single largest professional group unjustly imprisoned in 2008, overtaking print and broadcast journalists for the first time.
China and Vietnam, where burgeoning blogging cultures have encountered extensive monitoring and restrictions, are among Asia’s worst blogging nations, said the report.
Relying on a mix of detentions, regulations and intimidation, authorities in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Egypt have emerged as the leading online oppressors in the Middle East and North Africa.
Cuba and Turkmenistan, nations where Internet access is heavily restricted, round out the dishonor roll on the CPJ list.
Along with censorship and restrictions on print and broadcast media, Burma has applied extensive restrictions on blogging and other Internet activity, the CPJ said.
According to the Internet research group OpenNet Initiative, private Internet penetration in Burma is only about 1 percent and most citizens access the Internet in cybercafés where military authorities heavily regulate activities.
The government, which shut down the Internet altogether during a popular uprising led by Buddhist monks in 2007, has the capability to monitor e-mail and other communication methods and to block users from viewing Web sites of political opposition groups.
At least two Burmese bloggers are now serving long prison sentences.
Blogger Maung Thura, popularly known as Zarganar, is serving a 35-year prison term for disseminating video footage after Cyclone Nargis in 2008.
Nay Phone Latt, 28, is serving eight years and six months in Hpa-an Prison in Karen State for infringement of several acts governing computer use.
Burmese Women Arrested in Prostitution Raid
By THE IRRAWADDY
Thirty-nine Burmese migrant women were arrested on Tuesday by Thai immigration authorities in Ranong in southern Thailand under suspicion of working as prostitutes and illegal entry into the country, according to local sources.
A local resident said that at least 40 members of the Thai security forces, including soldiers, raided a house where Burmese women were living and arrested all those inside.
“The women had been renting the house for some time,” he said. “But the neighbors were upset about what they were doing, so they informed the local authorities.”
According to Inn News, a Thai-language Web site, immigration officials questioned the arrested women, 17 of whom allegedly entered Thailand illegally and five of whom had border passes that had expired.
Inn News quoted a 20-year-old Burmese woman as saying: “I come from Rangoon and have been living in Ranong for six years.”
She said that she normally serviced eight to ten customers a night, according to the Thai Web site, and that Burmese migrant sex workers have to pay 180 Baht (US $5) per night to local authorities to avoid arrest.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, a staff member at the immigration office in Ranong said the 39 women were being detained at the local police station.
Last week, Burmese and Thai authorities signed an agreement to counter human trafficking—especially that of women and children—which included a measure to set up more checkpoints along the common border.
Thirty-nine Burmese migrant women were arrested on Tuesday by Thai immigration authorities in Ranong in southern Thailand under suspicion of working as prostitutes and illegal entry into the country, according to local sources.
A local resident said that at least 40 members of the Thai security forces, including soldiers, raided a house where Burmese women were living and arrested all those inside.
“The women had been renting the house for some time,” he said. “But the neighbors were upset about what they were doing, so they informed the local authorities.”
According to Inn News, a Thai-language Web site, immigration officials questioned the arrested women, 17 of whom allegedly entered Thailand illegally and five of whom had border passes that had expired.
Inn News quoted a 20-year-old Burmese woman as saying: “I come from Rangoon and have been living in Ranong for six years.”
She said that she normally serviced eight to ten customers a night, according to the Thai Web site, and that Burmese migrant sex workers have to pay 180 Baht (US $5) per night to local authorities to avoid arrest.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, a staff member at the immigration office in Ranong said the 39 women were being detained at the local police station.
Last week, Burmese and Thai authorities signed an agreement to counter human trafficking—especially that of women and children—which included a measure to set up more checkpoints along the common border.
Thai Ex-Diplomat Says He Urged Ban on Burma’s Asean Membership
By THE IRRAWADDY
Former Thai ambassador to Burma Poksak Nilubol has disclosed in a book titled “Understanding Burma” that his government rejected in 1996 a memo he wrote opposing Burma’s admittance to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Poksak, who wrote the book in collaboration with a former director-general of the Thai Foreign Ministry’s East Asia Department, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday: “When I made a report to the Thai Foreign Office in July 1996, it didn’t just ignore my memo but rejected it.”
Poksak served as Thailand’s ambassador to Burma in Rangoon from late 1994 to the beginning of 1998. During his time in Rangoon, he met opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, with the approval of the Thai government, which reportedly wanted to expand its ties not only with the Burmese government but with the opposition.
The meeting upset the Burmese regime, which pressed for Poksak’s recall. Poksak claimed that during his time in Rangoon he was monitored by intelligence officers.
In his book, Poksak said that other Asean members had also rejected his stand on Burma’s membership of Asean, fearing that if Burma were excluded it would push the country closer to China.
A report on Poksak’s book carried by the Bangkok English-language daily The Nation said the former diplomat warned that a trouble-wracked Burma would continue to cause problems for Thailand because of illegal migrants, human smuggling, border insurgency and illicit drugs.
Poksak charged that Thai politicians and military leaders alike misunderstood Burma. “I don’t think that Thai politicians and military leaders know and understand Burma,” he said.
Poksak said his book also described the influence the renowned soothsayer E Thi had over Thai politicians and Burmese military leaders, who sought advice from the disabled Burmese woman credited with supernatural powers.
Former Thai ambassador to Burma Poksak Nilubol has disclosed in a book titled “Understanding Burma” that his government rejected in 1996 a memo he wrote opposing Burma’s admittance to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Poksak, who wrote the book in collaboration with a former director-general of the Thai Foreign Ministry’s East Asia Department, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday: “When I made a report to the Thai Foreign Office in July 1996, it didn’t just ignore my memo but rejected it.”
Poksak served as Thailand’s ambassador to Burma in Rangoon from late 1994 to the beginning of 1998. During his time in Rangoon, he met opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, with the approval of the Thai government, which reportedly wanted to expand its ties not only with the Burmese government but with the opposition.
The meeting upset the Burmese regime, which pressed for Poksak’s recall. Poksak claimed that during his time in Rangoon he was monitored by intelligence officers.
In his book, Poksak said that other Asean members had also rejected his stand on Burma’s membership of Asean, fearing that if Burma were excluded it would push the country closer to China.
A report on Poksak’s book carried by the Bangkok English-language daily The Nation said the former diplomat warned that a trouble-wracked Burma would continue to cause problems for Thailand because of illegal migrants, human smuggling, border insurgency and illicit drugs.
Poksak charged that Thai politicians and military leaders alike misunderstood Burma. “I don’t think that Thai politicians and military leaders know and understand Burma,” he said.
Poksak said his book also described the influence the renowned soothsayer E Thi had over Thai politicians and Burmese military leaders, who sought advice from the disabled Burmese woman credited with supernatural powers.
ADB Triples Capital to Respond to Economic Crisis
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MANILA — The Asian Development Bank said Thursday it is tripling its capital to $165 billion to provide the resources needed to respond to the global economic crisis and push its long-term goal of cutting poverty in the region.
The Manila-based bank's board of governors said an overwhelming majority of the ADB's 67 member countries voted to endorse the 200 percent increase to ADB's current $55 billion of capital.
"This substantial increase is a resounding vote of confidence from our shareholders for what we can achieve as a premier development partner in the region," ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said. "We must do all we can to prevent the reversal of hard-won gains for our region in social and economic development, and in poverty reduction."
The decision comes just before the ADB's annual meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on May 2-5.
The capital boost allows the ADB to substantially increase its support to countries affected by the global downturn and to provide an additional $10 billion over the next few years for crisis-related assistance.
ADB estimates the financial crisis will keep more than 60 million people in developing Asia trapped in poverty this year, a figure that is expected to rise to nearly 100 million in 2010.
The additional capital also will help address the region's huge, long-term development needs, including efforts to meet the United Nations' "millennium" goals of reducing poverty, hunger and disease and improving children's health and education
A quarter of the population in ADB developing countries have no access to electricity and less than 20 percent have access to piped water, the bank said.
MANILA — The Asian Development Bank said Thursday it is tripling its capital to $165 billion to provide the resources needed to respond to the global economic crisis and push its long-term goal of cutting poverty in the region.
The Manila-based bank's board of governors said an overwhelming majority of the ADB's 67 member countries voted to endorse the 200 percent increase to ADB's current $55 billion of capital.
"This substantial increase is a resounding vote of confidence from our shareholders for what we can achieve as a premier development partner in the region," ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said. "We must do all we can to prevent the reversal of hard-won gains for our region in social and economic development, and in poverty reduction."
The decision comes just before the ADB's annual meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on May 2-5.
The capital boost allows the ADB to substantially increase its support to countries affected by the global downturn and to provide an additional $10 billion over the next few years for crisis-related assistance.
ADB estimates the financial crisis will keep more than 60 million people in developing Asia trapped in poverty this year, a figure that is expected to rise to nearly 100 million in 2010.
The additional capital also will help address the region's huge, long-term development needs, including efforts to meet the United Nations' "millennium" goals of reducing poverty, hunger and disease and improving children's health and education
A quarter of the population in ADB developing countries have no access to electricity and less than 20 percent have access to piped water, the bank said.
Singapore Unemployment Jumps to 3.2 percent
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SINGAPORE — The number of jobless Singaporeans jumped in the first quarter to its highest since 2005 as a slump in global trade pummeled the city-state's exports and sparked manufacturing layoffs.
The unemployment rate rose to a seasonally adjusted 3.2 percent in March from 2.5 percent in December and 1.9 percent in March 2008, Singapore's Manpower Ministry said in a statement Thursday.
The manufacturing sector lost 19,900 jobs in the first three months of the year, up from 7,000 jobs lost in the fourth quarter, the ministry said.
"Unless the recovery is swift, further job losses probably lie ahead of us," said Kit Wei Zheng, an analyst with Citigroup in Singapore.
The global recession has hurt Singapore's most important industries of trade, finance and tourism. The economy contracted 11.5 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the biggest drop since independence from Malaysia in 1965.
The government announced a $13 billion stimulus package in January—including a company subsidy for 12 percent of the first $1,662 of every employee's monthly wages hich has helped to keep joblessness from surging even higher, Kit said.
"The labor market may not see the worst case scenario initially feared, and the unemployment rate this year could fall slightly below our current forecast of 4.8 percent," Kit said.
SINGAPORE — The number of jobless Singaporeans jumped in the first quarter to its highest since 2005 as a slump in global trade pummeled the city-state's exports and sparked manufacturing layoffs.
The unemployment rate rose to a seasonally adjusted 3.2 percent in March from 2.5 percent in December and 1.9 percent in March 2008, Singapore's Manpower Ministry said in a statement Thursday.
The manufacturing sector lost 19,900 jobs in the first three months of the year, up from 7,000 jobs lost in the fourth quarter, the ministry said.
"Unless the recovery is swift, further job losses probably lie ahead of us," said Kit Wei Zheng, an analyst with Citigroup in Singapore.
The global recession has hurt Singapore's most important industries of trade, finance and tourism. The economy contracted 11.5 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the biggest drop since independence from Malaysia in 1965.
The government announced a $13 billion stimulus package in January—including a company subsidy for 12 percent of the first $1,662 of every employee's monthly wages hich has helped to keep joblessness from surging even higher, Kit said.
"The labor market may not see the worst case scenario initially feared, and the unemployment rate this year could fall slightly below our current forecast of 4.8 percent," Kit said.
Nargis Survivors Burdened by Debt
By MICHAEL CASEY / AP WRITER
BANGKOK — Without hundreds of millions of dollars in additional assistance, many victims of last year's devastating cyclone in Burma will be unable to rebuild homes or replant flooded fields in the Irrawaddy delta, the British charity Oxfam said Thursday.
Foreign governments and charities provided at least $315 million for food aid and emergency assistance in the months after Cyclone Nargis hit the country May 2-3, 2008, killing 138,000 people and leaving 800,000 homeless.
But Oxfam said without several more years of aid, many of the 2.4 million people affected by the disaster will have a difficult time returning to the life they knew.
"Urgent international assistance is needed before June so that farming and fishing families can kick-start their upcoming harvest, repay their loans, and avoid losing any more to this devastating cyclone and its aftermath," Oxfam's Claire Light said.
Oxfam warned many families in the delta who depend on farming and fishing could fall further into debt without additional help, sapping their ability to provide food for their families and materials to build new homes.
Farmers lost rice crops to the cyclone making them unable to pay back loans or purchase seeds, water buffaloes and equipment needed to plant crops, Oxfam said. As a result, the harvest in December was 32 percent lower than the previous year.
Fishermen lost boats and nets in the disaster, making it impossible to earn the money they need to repay outstanding loans, the charity said.
"As people get more and more into debt, that reduces their ability to buy food and rebuild their shelters," Light said.
The Tripartite Core Group—representing Burmese government, UN agencies and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations—released a three-year reconstruction plan in February that calls for $700 million in funding. It could not provide figures on how much has been raised so far, though it said Britain, Japan and several European nations have promised to contribute.
Nargis was the worst natural disaster in Burma's modern history and the world's fifth deadliest in the past 40 years.
BANGKOK — Without hundreds of millions of dollars in additional assistance, many victims of last year's devastating cyclone in Burma will be unable to rebuild homes or replant flooded fields in the Irrawaddy delta, the British charity Oxfam said Thursday.
Foreign governments and charities provided at least $315 million for food aid and emergency assistance in the months after Cyclone Nargis hit the country May 2-3, 2008, killing 138,000 people and leaving 800,000 homeless.
But Oxfam said without several more years of aid, many of the 2.4 million people affected by the disaster will have a difficult time returning to the life they knew.
"Urgent international assistance is needed before June so that farming and fishing families can kick-start their upcoming harvest, repay their loans, and avoid losing any more to this devastating cyclone and its aftermath," Oxfam's Claire Light said.
Oxfam warned many families in the delta who depend on farming and fishing could fall further into debt without additional help, sapping their ability to provide food for their families and materials to build new homes.
Farmers lost rice crops to the cyclone making them unable to pay back loans or purchase seeds, water buffaloes and equipment needed to plant crops, Oxfam said. As a result, the harvest in December was 32 percent lower than the previous year.
Fishermen lost boats and nets in the disaster, making it impossible to earn the money they need to repay outstanding loans, the charity said.
"As people get more and more into debt, that reduces their ability to buy food and rebuild their shelters," Light said.
The Tripartite Core Group—representing Burmese government, UN agencies and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations—released a three-year reconstruction plan in February that calls for $700 million in funding. It could not provide figures on how much has been raised so far, though it said Britain, Japan and several European nations have promised to contribute.
Nargis was the worst natural disaster in Burma's modern history and the world's fifth deadliest in the past 40 years.
Southeast Asian Health Ministers to Meet on Swine Flu
By GRANT PECK / AP WRITER
BANGKOK — Health ministers from Southeast Asian countries will meet, probably in early May in the Thai capital, to discuss how to deal with the swine flu crisis, the head of area's regional grouping said Wednesday.
Surin Pitsuwan, the secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, said the ministers "should get together at the earliest time possible," according to a press release from the group.
None of Asean's 10 member countries have yet confirmed any cases of swine flu, but scores of tests were being carried out on anyone reporting flu symptoms. South Korea was awaiting final test results in a "probable" case, and New Zealand has confirmed 14 infections—the first in the Asia-Pacific region—all in people recently returned from Mexico.
"The Thai Ministry of Public Health has expressed its readiness to host the meeting in Bangkok most probably in early May," Surin was quoted saying after he held consultations with Thailand and the Philippines. The announcement said the Philippines would chair the meeting.
Thailand's reputation as a suitable venue for regional meetings was cast into doubt earlier this month when a mob of anti-government demonstrators broke into a popular resort hotel hosting a summit of Asean and other Asian leaders, forcing its cancellation. Surin is a former Thai foreign minister and was a senior member of the Democrat Party of current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
Cambodia's prime minister earlier Wednesday had called for an emergency meeting of Asean members to discuss how to tackle the outbreak.
"We need common measures to prevent and fight against the fast spread of swine flu," Prime Minister Hun Sen said. "Southeast Asian leaders should have an emergency meeting right now."
Governments in Asia have potent memories of the 2003 SARS crisis and bird flu. Bird flu first began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003 and has caused 257 human fatalities, mostly in Southeast Asia.
Surin said in an earlier statement that officials have "the necessary experience" from past outbreaks to coordinate as "swine flu threatens to spread to the region."
Regional health experts who took part in an Asean-organized teleconference discussed the importance of harmonizing measures and initiatives, the group said.
They also discussed specific actions being taken by the individual member states, such as "screening of arrivals from effected countries using thermal scanners and health declaration forms and health advisory to passengers."
Meanwhile global health authorities warned Wednesday that swine flu was threatening to bloom into a pandemic, and the virus spread farther in Europe even as the outbreak appeared to stabilize at its epicenter. A toddler who succumbed in Texas became the first death outside Mexico.
Mexico, taking a drastic step as confirmed swine flu cases doubled to 99, including eight dead, announced it would temporarily suspend all nonessential activity of the federal government and private business from May 1-5. Essential services like transport, supermarkets, trash collection and hospitals will remain open.
New deaths finally seemed to be leveling off after an aggressive public health campaign in Mexico—only one additional confirmed death was announced Wednesday night—but the World Health Organization said the global threat is nevertheless serious enough to ramp up efforts to produce a vaccine against the virus.
"It really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic," WHO Director General Margaret Chan said in Geneva. "We do not have all the answers right now, but we will get them."
It was the first time the WHO had declared a Phase 5 outbreak, the second-highest on its threat scale, indicating a pandemic could be imminent.
The first US death from the outbreak was a Mexico City toddler who traveled to Texas with family and died Monday night at a Houston hospital. US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius predicted the child would not be the last US death from swine flu.
The virus, a mix of pig, bird and human genes to which people have limited natural immunity, had spread to at least nine countries. In the United States, nearly 100 have been sickened in 11 states.
BANGKOK — Health ministers from Southeast Asian countries will meet, probably in early May in the Thai capital, to discuss how to deal with the swine flu crisis, the head of area's regional grouping said Wednesday.
Surin Pitsuwan, the secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, said the ministers "should get together at the earliest time possible," according to a press release from the group.
None of Asean's 10 member countries have yet confirmed any cases of swine flu, but scores of tests were being carried out on anyone reporting flu symptoms. South Korea was awaiting final test results in a "probable" case, and New Zealand has confirmed 14 infections—the first in the Asia-Pacific region—all in people recently returned from Mexico.
"The Thai Ministry of Public Health has expressed its readiness to host the meeting in Bangkok most probably in early May," Surin was quoted saying after he held consultations with Thailand and the Philippines. The announcement said the Philippines would chair the meeting.
Thailand's reputation as a suitable venue for regional meetings was cast into doubt earlier this month when a mob of anti-government demonstrators broke into a popular resort hotel hosting a summit of Asean and other Asian leaders, forcing its cancellation. Surin is a former Thai foreign minister and was a senior member of the Democrat Party of current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
Cambodia's prime minister earlier Wednesday had called for an emergency meeting of Asean members to discuss how to tackle the outbreak.
"We need common measures to prevent and fight against the fast spread of swine flu," Prime Minister Hun Sen said. "Southeast Asian leaders should have an emergency meeting right now."
Governments in Asia have potent memories of the 2003 SARS crisis and bird flu. Bird flu first began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003 and has caused 257 human fatalities, mostly in Southeast Asia.
Surin said in an earlier statement that officials have "the necessary experience" from past outbreaks to coordinate as "swine flu threatens to spread to the region."
Regional health experts who took part in an Asean-organized teleconference discussed the importance of harmonizing measures and initiatives, the group said.
They also discussed specific actions being taken by the individual member states, such as "screening of arrivals from effected countries using thermal scanners and health declaration forms and health advisory to passengers."
Meanwhile global health authorities warned Wednesday that swine flu was threatening to bloom into a pandemic, and the virus spread farther in Europe even as the outbreak appeared to stabilize at its epicenter. A toddler who succumbed in Texas became the first death outside Mexico.
Mexico, taking a drastic step as confirmed swine flu cases doubled to 99, including eight dead, announced it would temporarily suspend all nonessential activity of the federal government and private business from May 1-5. Essential services like transport, supermarkets, trash collection and hospitals will remain open.
New deaths finally seemed to be leveling off after an aggressive public health campaign in Mexico—only one additional confirmed death was announced Wednesday night—but the World Health Organization said the global threat is nevertheless serious enough to ramp up efforts to produce a vaccine against the virus.
"It really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic," WHO Director General Margaret Chan said in Geneva. "We do not have all the answers right now, but we will get them."
It was the first time the WHO had declared a Phase 5 outbreak, the second-highest on its threat scale, indicating a pandemic could be imminent.
The first US death from the outbreak was a Mexico City toddler who traveled to Texas with family and died Monday night at a Houston hospital. US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius predicted the child would not be the last US death from swine flu.
The virus, a mix of pig, bird and human genes to which people have limited natural immunity, had spread to at least nine countries. In the United States, nearly 100 have been sickened in 11 states.
April 29, 2009
Crossing the Great Divide
By AUNG ZAW
Last week, I was at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) to attend a panel discussion organized by the BBC Burmese Service to mark the one-year anniversary of Cyclone Nargis, Burma’s worst recorded natural disaster.
My first question to Tin Htar Swe, the head of the BBC Burmese Service in London, was why there were no Burmese NGO workers or monks on the panel. Both groups are widely recognized as key participants in the post-Nargis relief effort.
She replied that local aid workers and monks were initially invited to speak, but they all turned down the invitation when they learned that the discussion would be videotaped and aired.
After hearing this response, a Burmese colleague joked that it looked like Burma’s humanitarian workers were sharing the fate of the country’s political activists, who have long been forced to carry out most of their activities “underground.”
But two of the panelists—Chris Kaye, the World Food Program’s country director for Burma, and Dr Frank Smithius, the country representative for MSF (Holland)—disagreed with the suggestion that the Burmese regime was impeding relief efforts.
They said that aid could be delivered to the needy without interference from the junta. But they also emphasized that much more work needed to be done to improve the lives of cyclone survivors. The recovery process in the delta would take time and more assistance was needed, they said. No one disagreed with them.
The third panelist, Britain’s ambassador to Burma, Mark Canning, also had a message that few people could disagree with. He said that Burma remained one of the most repressive places on earth, and insisted that real political progress could only begin after the regime released all of the country’s political prisoners.
At the same time, however, he stressed that while searching for a solution to Burma’s political problems, the basic needs of the Burmese people could not be ignored.
But meeting these needs continues to be a serious challenge for all involved. Although more international NGOs have entered Burma since Cyclone Nargis and large numbers of ordinary Burmese have joined the relief effort, it remains unclear how far the regime will go in allowing a larger “humanitarian space” to open in the country.
While many observers outside the country remain skeptical about the international aid agencies’ claims of being able to work freely (“What else do you expect them to say?” asked one cynical senior journalist at the FCCT), the regime itself is as suspicious as ever of these outsiders.
According to official sources in Naypyidaw, top leaders have shown little interest in humanitarian relief efforts in the delta, but are paying close attention to what’s going on there, as they remain ever watchful of signs of anything that could undermine their grip on power.
Indeed, when the microphones were off, some aid workers admitted that the junta has often been less than helpful, confirming comments from some Burmese observers who attended the FCCT event, who said that the real situation in the delta was very different from the picture being painted by the international aid groups.
Some foreign NGO workers also expressed doubts about the three-year recovery project receiving the $700 million it is estimated to need—something that will hinge largely on their ability to convince foreign donors that the regime is not hindering their efforts.
Last week, Koos Richelle, the director general of the European Commission’s EuropeAid Cooperation Office, told reporters in Manila that Burma must open up to dialogue with donors if it wants to receive much-needed development assistance. He added, however, that there has been little progress in providing aid to Burma because the military regime refuses to discuss development programs.
Although the regime has extended the mandate of the relief-coordinating body, the Tripartite Core Group—consisting of representatives of the UN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the junta—for another year, Naypyidaw appears to be reluctant to allow more foreign aid workers into the country.
This is a disappointment for aid workers who say that they have been able to collaborate effectively with officials committed to helping their fellow Burmese citizens through cooperation with international relief groups and UN agencies.
One panelist even said that his organization was able to work inside Burma without sacrificing any of its core principles. But a foreign aid worker with in-depth knowledge of Burma was dismissive of this claim. The only organization in Burma that has strictly adhered to its principles is the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), he said. Although the ICRC stopped its activities, including prison visits, in Burma after the regime imposed restrictions, it has maintained its office in Rangoon.
Meanwhile, some aid workers active inside Burma are countering such recriminations by arguing that advocacy groups and activists outside the country are attempting to paint an overly bleak picture of the difficulties of working with the junta.
Recently, 21 international NGOs involved in Nargis-related relief and recovery work slammed a joint report by the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Thailand-based Emergency Assistance Team (EAT) which was highly critical of the relief effort in the delta.
In a joint letter, the NGO group said that the report, titled “After the Storm: Voices from the Delta,” published on February 27, was “both inaccurate and does a disservice to the courageous and resilient survivors of Cyclone Nargis.”
The report focused on human rights violations in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.
The response letter said, “We found a number of shortcomings in the report, including its premise, methodology and most of its findings.”
Defending the relief effort, the letter said: “Dozens of international and local relief agencies along with foreign embassies are continually examining humanitarian and delivery from inside Burma. They are able to do so independently and first-hand.
“The international humanitarian assistance delivered to date has been life-saving and life sustaining for millions of cyclone survivors. It has reached them without significant interference,” the letter claimed.
The letter also claimed that misleading reports could undermine further aid to cyclone survivors.
Although others have also questioned the Johns Hopkins/EAT report’s methodology, most observers agree that it has succeeded in initiating a healthy debate. Some researchers who advocate increased aid defended the report, saying that it helps to raise awareness of the need for transparency and accountability in the distribution of aid and use of funds.
As the relief effort approaches the one-year mark, this would be a good time for the aid community inside and outside Burma to open a dialogue, instead of undermining the missions inside and along the border.
Burmese aid workers on both sides of this artificial divide have many shared concerns. One is that the fight over aid money could obscure more important issues and even intensify divisions between Burmese inside and outside of the country.
A year ago, there was unprecedented cooperation between Burmese living in exile and those still inside the country, as both struggled to find a way to come to the assistance of their fellow citizens. Now, however, many fear that a dispute among foreign aid groups could weaken their shared resolve, with consequences that can only add to the tragedy of Cyclone Nargis.
Last week, I was at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) to attend a panel discussion organized by the BBC Burmese Service to mark the one-year anniversary of Cyclone Nargis, Burma’s worst recorded natural disaster.
My first question to Tin Htar Swe, the head of the BBC Burmese Service in London, was why there were no Burmese NGO workers or monks on the panel. Both groups are widely recognized as key participants in the post-Nargis relief effort.
She replied that local aid workers and monks were initially invited to speak, but they all turned down the invitation when they learned that the discussion would be videotaped and aired.
After hearing this response, a Burmese colleague joked that it looked like Burma’s humanitarian workers were sharing the fate of the country’s political activists, who have long been forced to carry out most of their activities “underground.”
But two of the panelists—Chris Kaye, the World Food Program’s country director for Burma, and Dr Frank Smithius, the country representative for MSF (Holland)—disagreed with the suggestion that the Burmese regime was impeding relief efforts.
They said that aid could be delivered to the needy without interference from the junta. But they also emphasized that much more work needed to be done to improve the lives of cyclone survivors. The recovery process in the delta would take time and more assistance was needed, they said. No one disagreed with them.
The third panelist, Britain’s ambassador to Burma, Mark Canning, also had a message that few people could disagree with. He said that Burma remained one of the most repressive places on earth, and insisted that real political progress could only begin after the regime released all of the country’s political prisoners.
At the same time, however, he stressed that while searching for a solution to Burma’s political problems, the basic needs of the Burmese people could not be ignored.
But meeting these needs continues to be a serious challenge for all involved. Although more international NGOs have entered Burma since Cyclone Nargis and large numbers of ordinary Burmese have joined the relief effort, it remains unclear how far the regime will go in allowing a larger “humanitarian space” to open in the country.
While many observers outside the country remain skeptical about the international aid agencies’ claims of being able to work freely (“What else do you expect them to say?” asked one cynical senior journalist at the FCCT), the regime itself is as suspicious as ever of these outsiders.
According to official sources in Naypyidaw, top leaders have shown little interest in humanitarian relief efforts in the delta, but are paying close attention to what’s going on there, as they remain ever watchful of signs of anything that could undermine their grip on power.
Indeed, when the microphones were off, some aid workers admitted that the junta has often been less than helpful, confirming comments from some Burmese observers who attended the FCCT event, who said that the real situation in the delta was very different from the picture being painted by the international aid groups.
Some foreign NGO workers also expressed doubts about the three-year recovery project receiving the $700 million it is estimated to need—something that will hinge largely on their ability to convince foreign donors that the regime is not hindering their efforts.
Last week, Koos Richelle, the director general of the European Commission’s EuropeAid Cooperation Office, told reporters in Manila that Burma must open up to dialogue with donors if it wants to receive much-needed development assistance. He added, however, that there has been little progress in providing aid to Burma because the military regime refuses to discuss development programs.
Although the regime has extended the mandate of the relief-coordinating body, the Tripartite Core Group—consisting of representatives of the UN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the junta—for another year, Naypyidaw appears to be reluctant to allow more foreign aid workers into the country.
This is a disappointment for aid workers who say that they have been able to collaborate effectively with officials committed to helping their fellow Burmese citizens through cooperation with international relief groups and UN agencies.
One panelist even said that his organization was able to work inside Burma without sacrificing any of its core principles. But a foreign aid worker with in-depth knowledge of Burma was dismissive of this claim. The only organization in Burma that has strictly adhered to its principles is the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), he said. Although the ICRC stopped its activities, including prison visits, in Burma after the regime imposed restrictions, it has maintained its office in Rangoon.
Meanwhile, some aid workers active inside Burma are countering such recriminations by arguing that advocacy groups and activists outside the country are attempting to paint an overly bleak picture of the difficulties of working with the junta.
Recently, 21 international NGOs involved in Nargis-related relief and recovery work slammed a joint report by the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Thailand-based Emergency Assistance Team (EAT) which was highly critical of the relief effort in the delta.
In a joint letter, the NGO group said that the report, titled “After the Storm: Voices from the Delta,” published on February 27, was “both inaccurate and does a disservice to the courageous and resilient survivors of Cyclone Nargis.”
The report focused on human rights violations in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.
The response letter said, “We found a number of shortcomings in the report, including its premise, methodology and most of its findings.”
Defending the relief effort, the letter said: “Dozens of international and local relief agencies along with foreign embassies are continually examining humanitarian and delivery from inside Burma. They are able to do so independently and first-hand.
“The international humanitarian assistance delivered to date has been life-saving and life sustaining for millions of cyclone survivors. It has reached them without significant interference,” the letter claimed.
The letter also claimed that misleading reports could undermine further aid to cyclone survivors.
Although others have also questioned the Johns Hopkins/EAT report’s methodology, most observers agree that it has succeeded in initiating a healthy debate. Some researchers who advocate increased aid defended the report, saying that it helps to raise awareness of the need for transparency and accountability in the distribution of aid and use of funds.
As the relief effort approaches the one-year mark, this would be a good time for the aid community inside and outside Burma to open a dialogue, instead of undermining the missions inside and along the border.
Burmese aid workers on both sides of this artificial divide have many shared concerns. One is that the fight over aid money could obscure more important issues and even intensify divisions between Burmese inside and outside of the country.
A year ago, there was unprecedented cooperation between Burmese living in exile and those still inside the country, as both struggled to find a way to come to the assistance of their fellow citizens. Now, however, many fear that a dispute among foreign aid groups could weaken their shared resolve, with consequences that can only add to the tragedy of Cyclone Nargis.
NLD in Dilemma
By WAI MOE
Key members of Burma’s main political opposition party, the National League for Democracy, have gathered in Rangoon—with little harassment from the regime—to discuss the 2010 election issue.
The two-day gathering produced a statement read by party chairman Aung Shwe, outlining the party’s call for an “inclusive” political process in the country’s first nationwide election since 1990.
They core points in the statement were the unconditional release of political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi, Shan leader Hkun Htun Oo, Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi; a review of the new constitution, a genuine dialogue between the junta head Snr-Gen Than Shwe and Suu Kyi and continued dialogue with Burma’s ethnic minorities in “the next phase.”
Interestingly, Aung Shwe recognized the significance of ethnic issues for the future of the nation by saying the country’s problems “can be solved only if ethnic nationalities participate in the political process.”
Speaking to The Irrawaddy, Aye Thar Aung, an Arakanese leader who is allied with the NLD, said, “This time, the meeting is different from the past ones. The NLD headquarters held the meeting because NLD leaders wanted to hear from the party’s grassroots on the forthcoming election and future plans.”
He said the military government was also keen to know the outcome of the meeting. In the past, the regime usually barred delegates from attending party meetings in Rangoon.
On the first day of the two-day meeting, Aung Shwe told party members that the NLD will wait for the regime’s party registration and election laws to be issued before deciding whether to take part in the election.
In his speech on April 28, Aung Shwe did not mention anything about the outcome of the 1990 election, which it has repeatedly called for the junta to honor in past years. However, he indirectly said the parliament committee, under section 3 of the parliament election law of 1990, should review the 2008 constitution.
The NLD’s survival as a viable opposition party was also a main topic of discussion at Rangoon headquarters.
There are ideological differences within the NLD. One debate among members surrounds the older generation of leadership and a younger wing of activists.
Some rebellious younger party members in the youth section argue that the main objective of forming the NLD in 1988 was to bring democracy and positive change to the country, and argue that instead the party has drifted into a “survival” mode.
However, according to some NLD members, the party reversed its survival policy, even before the recent release of Win Tin, a prominent NLD leader. As one example, they note that in 2008, the NLD rejected the junta’s call to withdraw its statements that criticized the 2008 constitution and the constitutional referendum last May.
Party insiders and some senior party members readily acknowledge that the NLD faces a serious challenge as the 2010 election nears, and its effectiveness in rallying the country could determine its survival as a relevant force.
“Yes, the NLD is facing a big dilemma. The junta can ban it for two reasons—one is its position on the coming election and the other is its rejection of the constitution,” Aye Thar Aung said.
Ohn Maung, a veteran politician in Rangoon, said that in the regime’s election laws for the 2010 election, opposition parties would probably have less maneuvering room to campaign than in the 1990 elections.
In the 1990 election law, any party that failed to register in at least three constituencies was automatically abolished by Burma’s election commission.
If there are stricter regulations on political parties in the coming election law, a party will be required to offer candidates in more constituencies than in 1990 and it would need more money to registered as a legal party.
Observers believe that under the new law, a party that fails to register and offer candidates by the regime’s deadline could be abolished as a political organization, which poses a real threat to the NLD’s future.
Key members of Burma’s main political opposition party, the National League for Democracy, have gathered in Rangoon—with little harassment from the regime—to discuss the 2010 election issue.
The two-day gathering produced a statement read by party chairman Aung Shwe, outlining the party’s call for an “inclusive” political process in the country’s first nationwide election since 1990.
They core points in the statement were the unconditional release of political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi, Shan leader Hkun Htun Oo, Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi; a review of the new constitution, a genuine dialogue between the junta head Snr-Gen Than Shwe and Suu Kyi and continued dialogue with Burma’s ethnic minorities in “the next phase.”
Interestingly, Aung Shwe recognized the significance of ethnic issues for the future of the nation by saying the country’s problems “can be solved only if ethnic nationalities participate in the political process.”
Speaking to The Irrawaddy, Aye Thar Aung, an Arakanese leader who is allied with the NLD, said, “This time, the meeting is different from the past ones. The NLD headquarters held the meeting because NLD leaders wanted to hear from the party’s grassroots on the forthcoming election and future plans.”
He said the military government was also keen to know the outcome of the meeting. In the past, the regime usually barred delegates from attending party meetings in Rangoon.
On the first day of the two-day meeting, Aung Shwe told party members that the NLD will wait for the regime’s party registration and election laws to be issued before deciding whether to take part in the election.
In his speech on April 28, Aung Shwe did not mention anything about the outcome of the 1990 election, which it has repeatedly called for the junta to honor in past years. However, he indirectly said the parliament committee, under section 3 of the parliament election law of 1990, should review the 2008 constitution.
The NLD’s survival as a viable opposition party was also a main topic of discussion at Rangoon headquarters.
There are ideological differences within the NLD. One debate among members surrounds the older generation of leadership and a younger wing of activists.
Some rebellious younger party members in the youth section argue that the main objective of forming the NLD in 1988 was to bring democracy and positive change to the country, and argue that instead the party has drifted into a “survival” mode.
However, according to some NLD members, the party reversed its survival policy, even before the recent release of Win Tin, a prominent NLD leader. As one example, they note that in 2008, the NLD rejected the junta’s call to withdraw its statements that criticized the 2008 constitution and the constitutional referendum last May.
Party insiders and some senior party members readily acknowledge that the NLD faces a serious challenge as the 2010 election nears, and its effectiveness in rallying the country could determine its survival as a relevant force.
“Yes, the NLD is facing a big dilemma. The junta can ban it for two reasons—one is its position on the coming election and the other is its rejection of the constitution,” Aye Thar Aung said.
Ohn Maung, a veteran politician in Rangoon, said that in the regime’s election laws for the 2010 election, opposition parties would probably have less maneuvering room to campaign than in the 1990 elections.
In the 1990 election law, any party that failed to register in at least three constituencies was automatically abolished by Burma’s election commission.
If there are stricter regulations on political parties in the coming election law, a party will be required to offer candidates in more constituencies than in 1990 and it would need more money to registered as a legal party.
Observers believe that under the new law, a party that fails to register and offer candidates by the regime’s deadline could be abolished as a political organization, which poses a real threat to the NLD’s future.
Junta Commanders Court Ceasefire Groups
By MIN LWIN
Regional commanders from the Burmese military government met the leaders of several ceasefire groups on Tuesday for talks that likely centered on the groups’ participation in the 2010 election, according to sources at the Sino-Burmese border.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, the vice-chairman of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), Gauri Zau Seng, confirmed that 10 KIO representatives, including Chairman Lanyaw Zawng Hra, had met with Brig-Gen Soe Win of Northern Regional Military Command.
“They met about 10 o’clock this morning in Myitkyina and spoke about the 2010 election,” Gauri Zau Seng said, but declined to provide further details about the meeting.
Two armed Kachin groups—the KIO and the New Democratic Army (Kachin)—recently announced they had formed a proxy party named the Kachin State Progressive Party to participate in next year’s election.
The two ceasefire groups have voiced their support for the military-sponsored “Seven-step Road Map to Democracy” and have approved the junta’s constitution.
Also on Tuesday, Maj-Gen Aung Than Htut of the Northeast Regional Military Command met in Lasho, northern Shan State with Sao Khai Hpa, the chairman of the Shan State Army-North.
Likewise, Brig-Gen Win Maung, a commander with the Regional Operation Command based in Laogai, met with a delegation from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, a Kokang ceasefire group.
Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Burmese military researcher based in China, said that representatives of New Democratic Army (Kachin), including Zahkung Tingying, met on Tuesday with Brig-Gen Soe Win of Northern Regional Military Command.
“They spoke about how to reform the ethnic army after the election,” he said.
Aung Kyaw Zaw also said that Burmese Military Affairs Security Chief Lt-Gen Ye Myint met for talks with a delegation of the United Wa Sate Army (UWSA), Burma’s largest armed ethnic group, in Tang Yan, eastern Shan State.
After that meeting, Ye Myint met Sai Lin and a delegation from the National Democratic Alliance Army, which is based in eastern Shan State.
Several sources said that Ye Myint's main mission was to discuss the upcoming elections.
At a 20th anniversary celebration in Wa State recently, Bao You-Xiang, one of the leaders of the UWSA and its political wing, the United Wa State Party (UWSP), said that the UWSA was working toward building a more “solid and united” Wa State.
Sources speculated that the Burmese army was pushing the UWSA to disarm its troops and to withdraw from strategic positions in southern Shan State, along the Thai-Burmese border.
The Burmese junta has signed ceasefire agreements with several ethnic armies since 1989, but has until now allowed the ceasefire groups to retain their arms and control their areas.
Meanwhile, a non-ceasefire group, the New Mon State Party, declared recently that it will not participate in the elections and will not disarm.
Regional commanders from the Burmese military government met the leaders of several ceasefire groups on Tuesday for talks that likely centered on the groups’ participation in the 2010 election, according to sources at the Sino-Burmese border.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, the vice-chairman of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), Gauri Zau Seng, confirmed that 10 KIO representatives, including Chairman Lanyaw Zawng Hra, had met with Brig-Gen Soe Win of Northern Regional Military Command.
“They met about 10 o’clock this morning in Myitkyina and spoke about the 2010 election,” Gauri Zau Seng said, but declined to provide further details about the meeting.
Two armed Kachin groups—the KIO and the New Democratic Army (Kachin)—recently announced they had formed a proxy party named the Kachin State Progressive Party to participate in next year’s election.
The two ceasefire groups have voiced their support for the military-sponsored “Seven-step Road Map to Democracy” and have approved the junta’s constitution.
Also on Tuesday, Maj-Gen Aung Than Htut of the Northeast Regional Military Command met in Lasho, northern Shan State with Sao Khai Hpa, the chairman of the Shan State Army-North.
Likewise, Brig-Gen Win Maung, a commander with the Regional Operation Command based in Laogai, met with a delegation from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, a Kokang ceasefire group.
Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Burmese military researcher based in China, said that representatives of New Democratic Army (Kachin), including Zahkung Tingying, met on Tuesday with Brig-Gen Soe Win of Northern Regional Military Command.
“They spoke about how to reform the ethnic army after the election,” he said.
Aung Kyaw Zaw also said that Burmese Military Affairs Security Chief Lt-Gen Ye Myint met for talks with a delegation of the United Wa Sate Army (UWSA), Burma’s largest armed ethnic group, in Tang Yan, eastern Shan State.
After that meeting, Ye Myint met Sai Lin and a delegation from the National Democratic Alliance Army, which is based in eastern Shan State.
Several sources said that Ye Myint's main mission was to discuss the upcoming elections.
At a 20th anniversary celebration in Wa State recently, Bao You-Xiang, one of the leaders of the UWSA and its political wing, the United Wa State Party (UWSP), said that the UWSA was working toward building a more “solid and united” Wa State.
Sources speculated that the Burmese army was pushing the UWSA to disarm its troops and to withdraw from strategic positions in southern Shan State, along the Thai-Burmese border.
The Burmese junta has signed ceasefire agreements with several ethnic armies since 1989, but has until now allowed the ceasefire groups to retain their arms and control their areas.
Meanwhile, a non-ceasefire group, the New Mon State Party, declared recently that it will not participate in the elections and will not disarm.
Small-scale Livestock Farmers Struggling in Delta
By MIN KHET MAUNG
NAUNGTAWGYI—Thein Thein, 43, still can’t restart her small-scale livestock business, which once supported her six-member family, almost one year after Cyclone Nargis.
She lost her prize flock of four dozen ducks and three pigs, valued at more than US $300, when Cyclone Nargis pummeled Rangoon and the Irrawaddy delta in May 2008, leaving close to 140,000 people dead or missing and more than 2 million people destitute.
“I just have this small pig that I bought on credit from my neighbor,” the mother of five children said, pointing at a pig sleeping in a pigsty beside an empty duck coop.
As a single parent, she had never found it hard to earn household income until the cyclone struck. Now she crimps to get enough money for rice.
Since her life has changed, Thein Thein and her eldest son, age 16, now moonlight as day laborers for rice farmers in her village, Naungtawgyi, in Pyapon Township, one of the hardest hit areas.
“We want to resume our old business,” she said. “But how can we, without any assistance?”
Thein Thein said people in her area have yet to receive any aid in terms of restoring poultry and livestock animals.
Like Thein Thein, there are thousands of small-scale farmers in the cyclone-affected townships of Rangoon and Irrawaddy Division who are unable to rebuild their livelihoods.
Backyard poultry-raising and livestock play an important economic role in the households of small villages.
Poultry—chicken and ducks—are raised for eggs and meat, providing a nutritious variety in people’s diets, plus earning extra income. Pigs are also raised and sold for income and on special occasions such as weddings and festivals. Pigs, which can be raised in a confined space, are particularly important for the landless.
Water buffaloes and cattle require more land and are important draught animals, necessary for land cultivation and transportation.
In the aftermath of the cyclone, vast numbers of poultry and livestock died along with cyclone victims, causing major long-term income loss to the survivors who are still trying to rebuild their lives.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than 525,000 ducks (52 perfect of the population), 1.5 million chickens (45 percent), 68,000 pigs (28 percent), 7,500 goats (30 percent) and 227,000 draught animals (51 percent of water buffaloes and 23 percent of cattle) were died in the cyclone.
In an effort to replace the lost animals, the military government, UN agencies and international organizations have donated poultry and livestock animals to small-scale farmers in many townships of Rangoon and Irrawaddy Division.
“Our distribution targets the poor, the land-less, and female-headed families, who are unable to restore their livelihoods by themselves,” an FAO official said.
Assisting small-scale livestock farmers is one of the most urgent tasks of humanitarian agencies, he said, because the farmers rely on backyard farming as an essential income provider.
The FAO official said that despite the assistance, only a small percentage of the lost poultry and livestock has been provided so far.
According to FAO statistics, 12 percent of pigs, 3 percent of cattle and buffaloes, 1 percent of chickens and 20 percent of ducks have been replaced.
“We need more international assistance in order to fully restore their livelihoods,” said the official. “But, so far we have received only a small amount of funding.”
NAUNGTAWGYI—Thein Thein, 43, still can’t restart her small-scale livestock business, which once supported her six-member family, almost one year after Cyclone Nargis.
She lost her prize flock of four dozen ducks and three pigs, valued at more than US $300, when Cyclone Nargis pummeled Rangoon and the Irrawaddy delta in May 2008, leaving close to 140,000 people dead or missing and more than 2 million people destitute.
“I just have this small pig that I bought on credit from my neighbor,” the mother of five children said, pointing at a pig sleeping in a pigsty beside an empty duck coop.
As a single parent, she had never found it hard to earn household income until the cyclone struck. Now she crimps to get enough money for rice.
Since her life has changed, Thein Thein and her eldest son, age 16, now moonlight as day laborers for rice farmers in her village, Naungtawgyi, in Pyapon Township, one of the hardest hit areas.
“We want to resume our old business,” she said. “But how can we, without any assistance?”
Thein Thein said people in her area have yet to receive any aid in terms of restoring poultry and livestock animals.
Like Thein Thein, there are thousands of small-scale farmers in the cyclone-affected townships of Rangoon and Irrawaddy Division who are unable to rebuild their livelihoods.
Backyard poultry-raising and livestock play an important economic role in the households of small villages.
Poultry—chicken and ducks—are raised for eggs and meat, providing a nutritious variety in people’s diets, plus earning extra income. Pigs are also raised and sold for income and on special occasions such as weddings and festivals. Pigs, which can be raised in a confined space, are particularly important for the landless.
Water buffaloes and cattle require more land and are important draught animals, necessary for land cultivation and transportation.
In the aftermath of the cyclone, vast numbers of poultry and livestock died along with cyclone victims, causing major long-term income loss to the survivors who are still trying to rebuild their lives.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than 525,000 ducks (52 perfect of the population), 1.5 million chickens (45 percent), 68,000 pigs (28 percent), 7,500 goats (30 percent) and 227,000 draught animals (51 percent of water buffaloes and 23 percent of cattle) were died in the cyclone.
In an effort to replace the lost animals, the military government, UN agencies and international organizations have donated poultry and livestock animals to small-scale farmers in many townships of Rangoon and Irrawaddy Division.
“Our distribution targets the poor, the land-less, and female-headed families, who are unable to restore their livelihoods by themselves,” an FAO official said.
Assisting small-scale livestock farmers is one of the most urgent tasks of humanitarian agencies, he said, because the farmers rely on backyard farming as an essential income provider.
The FAO official said that despite the assistance, only a small percentage of the lost poultry and livestock has been provided so far.
According to FAO statistics, 12 percent of pigs, 3 percent of cattle and buffaloes, 1 percent of chickens and 20 percent of ducks have been replaced.
“We need more international assistance in order to fully restore their livelihoods,” said the official. “But, so far we have received only a small amount of funding.”
Burma’s Own Potemkin Village
By KYI WAI
RANGOON — Nearly half the inhabitants of the village of Thayet Thone Bin died in Cyclone Nargis, but lucky survivors had double reason to thank their own good fortune. Burma’s Energy Minister, Brig-Gen Lun Thi, was born there—and his patronage appears to have guaranteed the village special attention in the post-cyclone relief and reconstruction effort.
Twenty new houses, a school and a library were built amid the ruins. Five mechanical plows, four fishing boats, water-purification equipment, two pumps and a community TV set were delivered to the village.
Relief teams were accompanied by TV crews, who created a propaganda success story reminiscent of the fake Potemkin settlements reputedly built to fool the Russian empress Catherine II during a visit to the Crimea in 1787.
Thayet Thone Bin, in Kunchankone Township, became such a showpiece that it served as the background for other TV reports about the success of the cyclone relief effort. Road signs at the entrance to the village were replaced by others bearing other names in a bid to show that villages throughout the region were also recovering well.
"Our village has become a kind of film studio,” said one woman. “People filmed for the TV reports are given new clothes to wear in front of the cameras. Soldiers are based here and are filmed helping us in the fields. We’re even filmed reading at the new library and watching the community TV.”
Apart from infrastructure assistance, the people of Thayet Thone Bin have received only basic relief items and are living on handouts of rice.
Daw Mya Mya has received two blankets, a mosquito net, a set of cooking utensils, a rain-water container and some other items. She has no money and says she might have to sell her relief supplies at the local market in order to raise cash for the merit-making ceremonies so important to Burma’s Buddhists.
The ceremonies involve making donations to local monasteries and monks to ensure peace for the souls of departed family members. The tradition is so strong that families often make severe financial sacrifices in order to make merit for dead loved ones.
One 60-year-old who goes by the name of Grandpa Nyo is so short of money that he is asking friends to contribute to his merit-making ceremonies on the first anniversary of the cyclone deaths of his two sons.
“I couldn’t afford to pay for their funerals, so I’d like now to make some offering to the monks on the first anniversary of their deaths,” he said.
His two sons, aged 30 and 14, died when their fishing boat sank in the cyclone.
Grandpa Nyo’s 50-year-old wife explained that merit-making ceremonies were necessary to assure the souls of their dead sons peace and a return to a better life.
The couple’s home was flattened by the cyclone and they live now under the tarpaulin roof of a makeshift hut in Rangoon Division’s Kun Chan Kone Township. Their daughter supports them with the income she receives from selling lottery tickets.
Ko Kyaw Khin and Ma Pyone Pyone Yi, who live in the Irrawaddy delta’s Dadeye Township are also saving money for merit-making ceremonies for their mother and daughter, victims of Cyclone Nargis.
Their family lost their fishing boat and its nets in the cyclone. Relief agencies gave them a replacement boat but no nets. Now they fish in cooperation with a family owning nets, but the meager income has to be shared. Their predicament is reportedly a common problem in fishing communities struggling to recover from the effects of the cyclone.
The importance of making merit on the first anniversary of the cyclone and the death of family members is forcing many survivors to overcome their resistance to returning to their devastated villages,
Ko Zaw Zaw left Padauk Kone village in Labutta Township for Rangoon after the cyclone destroyed his livelihood in the fishing industry. His father died in the cyclone, and he is forcing himself to face the pain of returning home in order to make merit.
“My younger brother, who still lives in the village, believes my father’s spirit cannot be released until we have made merit,” he said. “We couldn't do it after three months, nor after six months. But I will definitely do it on the first anniversary of his death.”
His determination to make merit, whatever the cost, is shared by a farmer who lost his sister in the cyclone. Most of his land was spoilt by sea water, reducing paddy yields by 75 percent, and he owes money to the bank. Nevertheless, he is putting money aside for merit-making.
RANGOON — Nearly half the inhabitants of the village of Thayet Thone Bin died in Cyclone Nargis, but lucky survivors had double reason to thank their own good fortune. Burma’s Energy Minister, Brig-Gen Lun Thi, was born there—and his patronage appears to have guaranteed the village special attention in the post-cyclone relief and reconstruction effort.
Twenty new houses, a school and a library were built amid the ruins. Five mechanical plows, four fishing boats, water-purification equipment, two pumps and a community TV set were delivered to the village.
Relief teams were accompanied by TV crews, who created a propaganda success story reminiscent of the fake Potemkin settlements reputedly built to fool the Russian empress Catherine II during a visit to the Crimea in 1787.
Thayet Thone Bin, in Kunchankone Township, became such a showpiece that it served as the background for other TV reports about the success of the cyclone relief effort. Road signs at the entrance to the village were replaced by others bearing other names in a bid to show that villages throughout the region were also recovering well.
"Our village has become a kind of film studio,” said one woman. “People filmed for the TV reports are given new clothes to wear in front of the cameras. Soldiers are based here and are filmed helping us in the fields. We’re even filmed reading at the new library and watching the community TV.”
Apart from infrastructure assistance, the people of Thayet Thone Bin have received only basic relief items and are living on handouts of rice.
Daw Mya Mya has received two blankets, a mosquito net, a set of cooking utensils, a rain-water container and some other items. She has no money and says she might have to sell her relief supplies at the local market in order to raise cash for the merit-making ceremonies so important to Burma’s Buddhists.
The ceremonies involve making donations to local monasteries and monks to ensure peace for the souls of departed family members. The tradition is so strong that families often make severe financial sacrifices in order to make merit for dead loved ones.
One 60-year-old who goes by the name of Grandpa Nyo is so short of money that he is asking friends to contribute to his merit-making ceremonies on the first anniversary of the cyclone deaths of his two sons.
“I couldn’t afford to pay for their funerals, so I’d like now to make some offering to the monks on the first anniversary of their deaths,” he said.
His two sons, aged 30 and 14, died when their fishing boat sank in the cyclone.
Grandpa Nyo’s 50-year-old wife explained that merit-making ceremonies were necessary to assure the souls of their dead sons peace and a return to a better life.
The couple’s home was flattened by the cyclone and they live now under the tarpaulin roof of a makeshift hut in Rangoon Division’s Kun Chan Kone Township. Their daughter supports them with the income she receives from selling lottery tickets.
Ko Kyaw Khin and Ma Pyone Pyone Yi, who live in the Irrawaddy delta’s Dadeye Township are also saving money for merit-making ceremonies for their mother and daughter, victims of Cyclone Nargis.
Their family lost their fishing boat and its nets in the cyclone. Relief agencies gave them a replacement boat but no nets. Now they fish in cooperation with a family owning nets, but the meager income has to be shared. Their predicament is reportedly a common problem in fishing communities struggling to recover from the effects of the cyclone.
The importance of making merit on the first anniversary of the cyclone and the death of family members is forcing many survivors to overcome their resistance to returning to their devastated villages,
Ko Zaw Zaw left Padauk Kone village in Labutta Township for Rangoon after the cyclone destroyed his livelihood in the fishing industry. His father died in the cyclone, and he is forcing himself to face the pain of returning home in order to make merit.
“My younger brother, who still lives in the village, believes my father’s spirit cannot be released until we have made merit,” he said. “We couldn't do it after three months, nor after six months. But I will definitely do it on the first anniversary of his death.”
His determination to make merit, whatever the cost, is shared by a farmer who lost his sister in the cyclone. Most of his land was spoilt by sea water, reducing paddy yields by 75 percent, and he owes money to the bank. Nevertheless, he is putting money aside for merit-making.
Donor in the Delta
By THE IRRAWADDY
The Irrawaddy speaks to the country director of Save the Children in Burma, Andrew Kirkwood, about the challenges of operating in the Irrawaddy delta.
Question: What do you think about the situation one year after Cyclone Nargis hit Burma?
Answer: I think it depends very much on where you go in the delta. In the commercial centers all around the delta and in villages closer to Rangoon, most people have recovered, in certain senses, a normal life. In most commercial centers, you can see that people have rebuilt homes, markets are working and there’s a great deal of commercial activity.
But in the southwestern part of the delta, in rural areas, the places where cyclone hit, people are still many, many years away from recovering a way to make a living. So, these people don’t have enough water to drink and wash with. They are reliant on food distribution from aid agencies. They lost their family members, their homes and all their ways of making a living. So it’s going take these people many, many years to recover.
Q: Can you estimate how many children became orphans after Cyclone Nargis? What is your organization doing for them?
A: We have registered about 1,000 children who are no longer living with their families, who have lost their families. Those children have been entered in a database which is used by many agencies so we can match parents who have lost their kids with kids who have lost their parents.
Most of those children have either been reunited with their families or placed with extended family members or with foster families in their community. But so many of these children are living in orphanages run by local churches or local monasteries, and we are supporting those orphanages to improve the conditions that these children have for living and for education.
Q: What difficulties and restrictions did you face when your organization was operating aid deliveries in the delta?
A: By far the biggest challenges are logistical. The villages that we are working in are very isolated and can only be reached, most of them, by boats. And some of them are very far south in the delta, where the rivers are very big, the tides are very difficult and the weather—we’re coming now into the monsoon season—can be very dangerous. This is by far the biggest challenge that we face.
Q: The report titled “After the Storm: Voices from the Delta,” which was released by a non-governmental organization in exile and a human rights group, said that INGOs working in the delta reported little about human rights violations. What is your comment on the report?
A: The report by Emergency Assistance Team (EAT) gives the wrong impression of what happened with the relief effort in the delta. Number one, the report focuses very largely on the first month of the cyclone response, when things were most difficult, which doesn’t give a very balanced picture of the Nargis response.
It also doesn’t talk about what was achieved. For example, Save the Children was able to reach 160,000 people with assistance in the first two weeks after the cyclone, including in the very southwestern tip of the delta, where the cyclone struck first. It’s really unfortunate that the report doesn’t give a more balanced picture of how the cyclone relief efforts went.
Q: Do you have any suggestion for the Burmese regime in terms of cooperating with aid agencies for further humanitarian assistance?
A: Save the Children works very closely with some parts of the government. We have a very good relationship with the Department of Social Welfare, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. With their 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.
The Irrawaddy speaks to the country director of Save the Children in Burma, Andrew Kirkwood, about the challenges of operating in the Irrawaddy delta.
Question: What do you think about the situation one year after Cyclone Nargis hit Burma?
Answer: I think it depends very much on where you go in the delta. In the commercial centers all around the delta and in villages closer to Rangoon, most people have recovered, in certain senses, a normal life. In most commercial centers, you can see that people have rebuilt homes, markets are working and there’s a great deal of commercial activity.
But in the southwestern part of the delta, in rural areas, the places where cyclone hit, people are still many, many years away from recovering a way to make a living. So, these people don’t have enough water to drink and wash with. They are reliant on food distribution from aid agencies. They lost their family members, their homes and all their ways of making a living. So it’s going take these people many, many years to recover.
Q: Can you estimate how many children became orphans after Cyclone Nargis? What is your organization doing for them?
A: We have registered about 1,000 children who are no longer living with their families, who have lost their families. Those children have been entered in a database which is used by many agencies so we can match parents who have lost their kids with kids who have lost their parents.
Most of those children have either been reunited with their families or placed with extended family members or with foster families in their community. But so many of these children are living in orphanages run by local churches or local monasteries, and we are supporting those orphanages to improve the conditions that these children have for living and for education.
Q: What difficulties and restrictions did you face when your organization was operating aid deliveries in the delta?
A: By far the biggest challenges are logistical. The villages that we are working in are very isolated and can only be reached, most of them, by boats. And some of them are very far south in the delta, where the rivers are very big, the tides are very difficult and the weather—we’re coming now into the monsoon season—can be very dangerous. This is by far the biggest challenge that we face.
Q: The report titled “After the Storm: Voices from the Delta,” which was released by a non-governmental organization in exile and a human rights group, said that INGOs working in the delta reported little about human rights violations. What is your comment on the report?
A: The report by Emergency Assistance Team (EAT) gives the wrong impression of what happened with the relief effort in the delta. Number one, the report focuses very largely on the first month of the cyclone response, when things were most difficult, which doesn’t give a very balanced picture of the Nargis response.
It also doesn’t talk about what was achieved. For example, Save the Children was able to reach 160,000 people with assistance in the first two weeks after the cyclone, including in the very southwestern tip of the delta, where the cyclone struck first. It’s really unfortunate that the report doesn’t give a more balanced picture of how the cyclone relief efforts went.
Q: Do you have any suggestion for the Burmese regime in terms of cooperating with aid agencies for further humanitarian assistance?
A: Save the Children works very closely with some parts of the government. We have a very good relationship with the Department of Social Welfare, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. With their 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.
Villagers Still Struggle Year after Storm
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OAK-KYIUT, IRRAWADDY DIVISION – The boat's owner points to a palm-covered bend in the river where dozens of bamboo huts perched on spindly stilts—until Cyclone Nargis devastated this remote region a year ago.
"There were many, many bodies," Tin Maung Thein, 57, says through an interpreter, gesturing toward a lush expanse of green where bloated corpses once gently nudged the high tide mark.
Nature has concealed the scars in this tangle of narrow waterways in the Irrawaddy Delta, where most of the more than 138,000 victims drowned when the storm roared through during the night last May 2. But behind the lush growth, tens of thousands of survivors still struggle to eke out a life.
Many lack clean drinking water. Rice fields remain bare, even as food handouts wind down. More than 2,000 schools have reopened, but some are short of teachers. A half million people live in rudimentary shelters.
International relief agencies have embarked on a three-year recovery plan, but response to a global appeal for $691 million in funding has been slow, the groups say.
"Finding that money to help get people back on their feet is the biggest challenge that we face at the moment," says Andrew Kirkwood, the country director of Save the Children Fund.
Worst off are those in remote areas, such as Tin Maung Thein's village of Oak-kyiut.
Sea water inundated drinking water wells throughout the delta and turned almost 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of Burma's most fertile rice paddies into salt-contaminated wastelands.
Aid coordinators say 240,000 people in remote villages still rely on drinking water delivered in large rubber bladders by boat. In some places, diesel-powered filtration plants work around the clock turning brackish estuary water into drinkable water.
People in Oak-kyiut, a village of 2,000 two hours up the Toe River from the regional hub of Bogalay, augment the local supply by buying water from vendors. A single muddy pond is its main source of drinking water, its two former reservoirs now holding only puddles of brackish rain water.
"Drinking water is our largest problem," Tin Maung Thein says through lips red from chewing betel nut and leaf, a locally grown mild stimulant.
With the rainy season approaching, Save the Children's Kirkwood expects the most pressing crisis will shift from water to a shortfall of 130,000 waterproof houses. About 450,000 homes were destroyed by the cyclone and 350,000 others sustained damage.
"We've got about 500,000 people currently living in makeshift shelters like tarpaulins that have been deteriorating in the sun for the past year," says Kirkwood, a Canadian native who also holds British citizenship.
The xenophobic military regime that rules Burma was widely condemned for denying foreign aid agencies access for the first weeks after the disaster, almost certainly adding to the death toll.
The government is now working with the international community through the Tripartite Core Group, made up of the military junta, the United Nations and the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
A UN report in December said a survey of a few thousand people spread among 100 delta communities found chronic food shortages and malnourishment, with many people still living in temporary shelters with plastic sheeting.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who toured the area several weeks after the storm to demand better access for aid workers, says he is open to returning. But first the international community wants to see progress toward "full democratization," including the release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political detainees.
Thousands of registered aid workers now have access, though aid groups worry the government may arbitrarily evict them at any moment, says aid worker Matt MacCalla of the Santa Barbara, California-based medical aid charity Direct Relief International.
"It would be a political decision on when there was no longer a need for humanitarian aid and a response to Cyclone Nargis," says MacCalla, who visited the disaster area in April.
The pace of reconstruction is frenetic in Bogalay, a bustling community of more than 60,000 people. The cyclone destroyed 95 percent of the houses and killed 10,000 residents.
Awba Ta, a Buddhist monk in the town, is familiar with the hardships in outlying villages. "The people need 10 times more rice" than aid groups are providing, Awba Ta says.
Oak-kyiut's paddy fields are bare, but village chief Aye Maung Gyi says aid workers told him the April delivery of donated rice was the village's last monthly shipment.
The World Food Program initially provided food for more than 1 million cyclone survivors. While phasing out food donations proved impossible in the original six-month timeframe, the number of recipients has been falling, to 250,000.
Chris Kaye, the UN World Food Program's representative in Burma, concedes that remote villages such as Oak-kyiut struggled to receive their share of aid because of difficulties in reaching them. But he insists aid is getting to those who need it.
He says the current poor rice harvest is mostly the result of farmers' inability to borrow money to buy seeds. "The problem is much more to do with the availability of credit than it is a problem with salt-affected land," says Kaye, a Briton.
The fishing industry, the delta's second most important source of income and food after rice, also still struggles.
More than 40 percent of fishing boats and 70 percent of fishing gear were destroyed. The most recent review available, done in November, found that less than 10 percent of the more than 100,000 boats lost had been replaced.
The top UN representative in Burma, Bishow Parajuli, says more than 2,000 schools have reopened, though many are in temporary structures and teachers are needed.
The only teacher in the village of Gadonkani, who gave her name only as Yaung Ngo, says she struggles to cope with 200 students.
Ma Myo, a woman in the neighboring village of Koenginta who lost her husband and two daughters in the cyclone, says she cannot afford the fees to send her 8-year-old son to school.
Kirkwood says foreign governments have been reluctant to fund education, because it is regarded as the government's responsibility.
"By not doing so, the international community is basically saying to hundreds of thousands of children that they're not going to get an education any time soon," he says.
Despite the shortage of clean water, feared outbreaks of dengue and cholera never happened. One reason may be that Burmese have endured harsh conditions for generations.
"They're tough, their immune systems are relatively strong, having been drinking not the best water, eating not the best food and not having the best health care. So after the last couple of generations, it's the strong that make it," MacCalla says after visiting villages beyond Bogalay.
Though many died in Oak-kyiut, Aye Maung says the population has actually grown from 1,500 before the cyclone to 2,000 today, as survivors drifted in from abandoned nearby settlements.
"People came here because they are scared to live alone," Aye Maung says. Overhead, clouds gather, heralding perhaps the approaching cyclone season.
OAK-KYIUT, IRRAWADDY DIVISION – The boat's owner points to a palm-covered bend in the river where dozens of bamboo huts perched on spindly stilts—until Cyclone Nargis devastated this remote region a year ago.
"There were many, many bodies," Tin Maung Thein, 57, says through an interpreter, gesturing toward a lush expanse of green where bloated corpses once gently nudged the high tide mark.
Nature has concealed the scars in this tangle of narrow waterways in the Irrawaddy Delta, where most of the more than 138,000 victims drowned when the storm roared through during the night last May 2. But behind the lush growth, tens of thousands of survivors still struggle to eke out a life.
Many lack clean drinking water. Rice fields remain bare, even as food handouts wind down. More than 2,000 schools have reopened, but some are short of teachers. A half million people live in rudimentary shelters.
International relief agencies have embarked on a three-year recovery plan, but response to a global appeal for $691 million in funding has been slow, the groups say.
"Finding that money to help get people back on their feet is the biggest challenge that we face at the moment," says Andrew Kirkwood, the country director of Save the Children Fund.
Worst off are those in remote areas, such as Tin Maung Thein's village of Oak-kyiut.
Sea water inundated drinking water wells throughout the delta and turned almost 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of Burma's most fertile rice paddies into salt-contaminated wastelands.
Aid coordinators say 240,000 people in remote villages still rely on drinking water delivered in large rubber bladders by boat. In some places, diesel-powered filtration plants work around the clock turning brackish estuary water into drinkable water.
People in Oak-kyiut, a village of 2,000 two hours up the Toe River from the regional hub of Bogalay, augment the local supply by buying water from vendors. A single muddy pond is its main source of drinking water, its two former reservoirs now holding only puddles of brackish rain water.
"Drinking water is our largest problem," Tin Maung Thein says through lips red from chewing betel nut and leaf, a locally grown mild stimulant.
With the rainy season approaching, Save the Children's Kirkwood expects the most pressing crisis will shift from water to a shortfall of 130,000 waterproof houses. About 450,000 homes were destroyed by the cyclone and 350,000 others sustained damage.
"We've got about 500,000 people currently living in makeshift shelters like tarpaulins that have been deteriorating in the sun for the past year," says Kirkwood, a Canadian native who also holds British citizenship.
The xenophobic military regime that rules Burma was widely condemned for denying foreign aid agencies access for the first weeks after the disaster, almost certainly adding to the death toll.
The government is now working with the international community through the Tripartite Core Group, made up of the military junta, the United Nations and the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
A UN report in December said a survey of a few thousand people spread among 100 delta communities found chronic food shortages and malnourishment, with many people still living in temporary shelters with plastic sheeting.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who toured the area several weeks after the storm to demand better access for aid workers, says he is open to returning. But first the international community wants to see progress toward "full democratization," including the release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political detainees.
Thousands of registered aid workers now have access, though aid groups worry the government may arbitrarily evict them at any moment, says aid worker Matt MacCalla of the Santa Barbara, California-based medical aid charity Direct Relief International.
"It would be a political decision on when there was no longer a need for humanitarian aid and a response to Cyclone Nargis," says MacCalla, who visited the disaster area in April.
The pace of reconstruction is frenetic in Bogalay, a bustling community of more than 60,000 people. The cyclone destroyed 95 percent of the houses and killed 10,000 residents.
Awba Ta, a Buddhist monk in the town, is familiar with the hardships in outlying villages. "The people need 10 times more rice" than aid groups are providing, Awba Ta says.
Oak-kyiut's paddy fields are bare, but village chief Aye Maung Gyi says aid workers told him the April delivery of donated rice was the village's last monthly shipment.
The World Food Program initially provided food for more than 1 million cyclone survivors. While phasing out food donations proved impossible in the original six-month timeframe, the number of recipients has been falling, to 250,000.
Chris Kaye, the UN World Food Program's representative in Burma, concedes that remote villages such as Oak-kyiut struggled to receive their share of aid because of difficulties in reaching them. But he insists aid is getting to those who need it.
He says the current poor rice harvest is mostly the result of farmers' inability to borrow money to buy seeds. "The problem is much more to do with the availability of credit than it is a problem with salt-affected land," says Kaye, a Briton.
The fishing industry, the delta's second most important source of income and food after rice, also still struggles.
More than 40 percent of fishing boats and 70 percent of fishing gear were destroyed. The most recent review available, done in November, found that less than 10 percent of the more than 100,000 boats lost had been replaced.
The top UN representative in Burma, Bishow Parajuli, says more than 2,000 schools have reopened, though many are in temporary structures and teachers are needed.
The only teacher in the village of Gadonkani, who gave her name only as Yaung Ngo, says she struggles to cope with 200 students.
Ma Myo, a woman in the neighboring village of Koenginta who lost her husband and two daughters in the cyclone, says she cannot afford the fees to send her 8-year-old son to school.
Kirkwood says foreign governments have been reluctant to fund education, because it is regarded as the government's responsibility.
"By not doing so, the international community is basically saying to hundreds of thousands of children that they're not going to get an education any time soon," he says.
Despite the shortage of clean water, feared outbreaks of dengue and cholera never happened. One reason may be that Burmese have endured harsh conditions for generations.
"They're tough, their immune systems are relatively strong, having been drinking not the best water, eating not the best food and not having the best health care. So after the last couple of generations, it's the strong that make it," MacCalla says after visiting villages beyond Bogalay.
Though many died in Oak-kyiut, Aye Maung says the population has actually grown from 1,500 before the cyclone to 2,000 today, as survivors drifted in from abandoned nearby settlements.
"People came here because they are scared to live alone," Aye Maung says. Overhead, clouds gather, heralding perhaps the approaching cyclone season.
Long Before Swine Flu, Asia Tackled SARS, Bird Flu
By MIN LEE / AP WRITER
HONG KONG — Before swine flu emptied restaurants and cinemas and made surgical masks a common sight in Mexico, similar scenes unfolded in Asia earlier this decade as it dealt with the back-to-back health emergencies of SARS and bird flu.
Both of those episodes offered lessons that have helped China, Vietnam and other countries prepare for the latest global health crisis, experts and officials say.
Among the chief lessons: countries must openly and honestly exchange information, vigilantly monitor for illness, aggressively quarantine suspected patients and thoroughly prepare emergency plans.
"If there's anything good that came out from SARS and avian influenza, it's that we now have better preparedness in China as well as in the rest of the world," said Hans Troedsson, head of the World Health Organization in Beijing.
"What is important is a transparency and an openness not only with the WHO but also with the public. It is very important that the public ... the common people, understand the situation" and not have the situation exaggerated, he said.
"The best way to do that is to provide information. That is the lesson we learned both in Vietnam as well in all other countries," he said.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome, better known as SARS, began as a mystery illness that sickened hundreds in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in late 2002 and early 2003. Chinese officials were flummoxed by the new disease and failed to inform the World Health Organization of the outbreak for weeks, restricting media coverage in order to preserve public confidence.
The disease spread outside the mainland in February 2003 when an infected 64-year-old doctor checked into a Hong Kong hotel. He later died in a local hospital, but not before he had infected 16 other hotel guests. Among them were tourists from Singapore and Canada and an American businessman, who traveled to other places, transmitting the disease and spreading the virus internationally. Also infected was a Hong Kong resident, who became ill and later spread the virus to another 143 people.
Within weeks, SARS had spread worldwide, infecting more than 8,000 people from 37 countries before it disappeared. More than 770 people died—299 from Hong Kong alone.
SARS "gave us a lot of valuable insight and practical experience in managing a large-scale outbreak that eventually spread to other parts of the world. That certainly has prepared us very well for what may come," Hong Kong Undersecretary for Food and Health Gabriel Leung said at a news conference Monday.
In the wake of that epidemic, governments began writing a playbook for dealing with disease outbreaks. Hong Kong built a special hospital unit dedicated to handling infectious diseases and improved isolation facilities and ventilation at other hospitals.
An increased awareness of personal hygiene—wearing masks and washing hands frequently—during SARS also contributed to a sharp decline in regular flu cases in 2003, said Lo Wing-lok, a Hong Kong infectious diseases expert.
Thermal imaging equipment—to detect high temperatures—were installed at airports and border-crossings across Asia and elsewhere.
In Canada, where SARS killed 44 people in Toronto, the government created the Public Health Agency, whose mission is to prevent and control infectious diseases. Thousands of hospitals, schools and churches now have pandemic plans that they didn't have before SARS.
Countries have also built large reserves of anti-viral drugs. Canada has a national stockpile of 55 million dosages of anti-viral drugs. Hong Kong keeps 20 million dosages.
Governments moved more aggressively when only months after SARS a second major crisis hit Asia—avian influenza. Governments slaughtered hundreds of millions of poultry in a bid to contain the virus. Since then, near yearly outbreaks of bird flu have spread to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
More than 250 people have died from bird flu, mostly from direct contact with infected poultry, but each human infection raises the chances that the virus will mutate, becoming more easily passed among humans and unleashing a global pandemic.
Not all lessons are applicable to the swine flu outbreak. Yuen Kwok-yung, a Hong Kong microbiologist who studied the SARS virus, said some people with swine flu may not show symptoms in the early stages, making it hard to know who and when to quarantine—a tactic widely used in controlling SARS.
Governments dealing with swine flu have drawn on these experiences and put into effect emergency plans. Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines dusted off thermal scanners used in the 2003 SARS crisis to check for fever among arriving passengers from North America. South Korea, India and Indonesia also announced screening.
Public health officials are being more forthcoming with information.
"This is an illness that was recognized in Mexico around April 15. We heard about it around the world about 48 hours later," said Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.
"We've identified the pathogen, we've confirmed it, we've sequenced the virus and if you look at what's happening now, every physician across ontario and probably every physician across Canada has had notification from their public health unit about what's happening," McGeer said.
Even in China, which was sharply criticized internationally for suppressing information about the SARS outbreaks and dragging its feet on bird flu, the government has reminded officials nationwide to use the disease surveillance network and report any cases promptly.
"Once a suspected case is found in China, it must be made public in a timely way," according to a State Council notice on state broadcaster CCTV. "We must be highly vigilant and take strong monitoring and prevention measures."
Associated Press reporters Tini Tran in Beijing and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
HONG KONG — Before swine flu emptied restaurants and cinemas and made surgical masks a common sight in Mexico, similar scenes unfolded in Asia earlier this decade as it dealt with the back-to-back health emergencies of SARS and bird flu.
Both of those episodes offered lessons that have helped China, Vietnam and other countries prepare for the latest global health crisis, experts and officials say.
Among the chief lessons: countries must openly and honestly exchange information, vigilantly monitor for illness, aggressively quarantine suspected patients and thoroughly prepare emergency plans.
"If there's anything good that came out from SARS and avian influenza, it's that we now have better preparedness in China as well as in the rest of the world," said Hans Troedsson, head of the World Health Organization in Beijing.
"What is important is a transparency and an openness not only with the WHO but also with the public. It is very important that the public ... the common people, understand the situation" and not have the situation exaggerated, he said.
"The best way to do that is to provide information. That is the lesson we learned both in Vietnam as well in all other countries," he said.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome, better known as SARS, began as a mystery illness that sickened hundreds in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in late 2002 and early 2003. Chinese officials were flummoxed by the new disease and failed to inform the World Health Organization of the outbreak for weeks, restricting media coverage in order to preserve public confidence.
The disease spread outside the mainland in February 2003 when an infected 64-year-old doctor checked into a Hong Kong hotel. He later died in a local hospital, but not before he had infected 16 other hotel guests. Among them were tourists from Singapore and Canada and an American businessman, who traveled to other places, transmitting the disease and spreading the virus internationally. Also infected was a Hong Kong resident, who became ill and later spread the virus to another 143 people.
Within weeks, SARS had spread worldwide, infecting more than 8,000 people from 37 countries before it disappeared. More than 770 people died—299 from Hong Kong alone.
SARS "gave us a lot of valuable insight and practical experience in managing a large-scale outbreak that eventually spread to other parts of the world. That certainly has prepared us very well for what may come," Hong Kong Undersecretary for Food and Health Gabriel Leung said at a news conference Monday.
In the wake of that epidemic, governments began writing a playbook for dealing with disease outbreaks. Hong Kong built a special hospital unit dedicated to handling infectious diseases and improved isolation facilities and ventilation at other hospitals.
An increased awareness of personal hygiene—wearing masks and washing hands frequently—during SARS also contributed to a sharp decline in regular flu cases in 2003, said Lo Wing-lok, a Hong Kong infectious diseases expert.
Thermal imaging equipment—to detect high temperatures—were installed at airports and border-crossings across Asia and elsewhere.
In Canada, where SARS killed 44 people in Toronto, the government created the Public Health Agency, whose mission is to prevent and control infectious diseases. Thousands of hospitals, schools and churches now have pandemic plans that they didn't have before SARS.
Countries have also built large reserves of anti-viral drugs. Canada has a national stockpile of 55 million dosages of anti-viral drugs. Hong Kong keeps 20 million dosages.
Governments moved more aggressively when only months after SARS a second major crisis hit Asia—avian influenza. Governments slaughtered hundreds of millions of poultry in a bid to contain the virus. Since then, near yearly outbreaks of bird flu have spread to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
More than 250 people have died from bird flu, mostly from direct contact with infected poultry, but each human infection raises the chances that the virus will mutate, becoming more easily passed among humans and unleashing a global pandemic.
Not all lessons are applicable to the swine flu outbreak. Yuen Kwok-yung, a Hong Kong microbiologist who studied the SARS virus, said some people with swine flu may not show symptoms in the early stages, making it hard to know who and when to quarantine—a tactic widely used in controlling SARS.
Governments dealing with swine flu have drawn on these experiences and put into effect emergency plans. Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines dusted off thermal scanners used in the 2003 SARS crisis to check for fever among arriving passengers from North America. South Korea, India and Indonesia also announced screening.
Public health officials are being more forthcoming with information.
"This is an illness that was recognized in Mexico around April 15. We heard about it around the world about 48 hours later," said Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.
"We've identified the pathogen, we've confirmed it, we've sequenced the virus and if you look at what's happening now, every physician across ontario and probably every physician across Canada has had notification from their public health unit about what's happening," McGeer said.
Even in China, which was sharply criticized internationally for suppressing information about the SARS outbreaks and dragging its feet on bird flu, the government has reminded officials nationwide to use the disease surveillance network and report any cases promptly.
"Once a suspected case is found in China, it must be made public in a timely way," according to a State Council notice on state broadcaster CCTV. "We must be highly vigilant and take strong monitoring and prevention measures."
Associated Press reporters Tini Tran in Beijing and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
Swine Flu Keeps Investors, Businesses on Edge
By GREG KELLER / AP WRITER
PARIS — The threat of a swine flu pandemic kept global businesses and investors on edge Tuesday, disrupting travel plans and sending stock markets down on fears the outbreak could worsen and cause more economic misery.
Days after news of the deadly virus outbreak in Mexico, stocks of companies in the travel and tourism industry were being hammered on fears that worried travelers would stay home.
Across Asia, tour groups abandoned more holiday jaunts to the country amid a series of government warnings. Airports from Indonesia to Australia tightened their screening of travelers.
In Moscow, the US Embassy issued a statement saying there was "no basis" for Russia's decision to bar pork imports from three US states, saying the disease was not spread through meat products, and hoping that normal trade would soon resume.
Much of the fallout hit financial markets jittery about the future, as opposed to the real economy. Shares in Europe's largest airline Air France-KLM continued the sharp drop begun Monday, falling an additional 2.85 percent to €8.16 on Tuesday. Shares in European hotel giant Accor SA, which operates 9 Sofitel and nearly 1,000 Motel 6 hotels in the United States, slid 4.35 percent to €30.10.
Shares in Euro Disney, which earlier Tuesday said its net loss nearly doubled to €85.4 million in the fiscal first half, were meanwhile down 9.8 percent at €3.60.
The disease, while still largely corralled in North America, has spread rapidly in recent days with the World Health Organization raising its global alert level and moving closer to declaring a flu pandemic as infections cropped up in Europe. Asia's first cases were confirmed in New Zealand; another case emerged in Israel. The virus is suspected in about 150 deaths, all in Mexico.
With the world economy already seen shrinking 1.3 percent this year by the International Monetary Fund, swine flu could add more stress by further eroding trade, consumer spending and investment—snuffing out what many say are the glimmers of a recovery.
"This certainly could exacerbate the recession," said Sherman Chan, an economist with Moody's in Australia. "The next couple weeks will be crucial. If this persists it could become a more serious concern and really cripple the economy."
For the US economy, any turnaround could be delayed well into 2010 as gross domestic product contracts more than expected. In a worst-case scenario, the US economy would shrink by an extra 0.3 percent this year, on top of a predicted 3.5 percent decline, says Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight. That amounts to a roughly $50 billion loss of economic activity, he said. The IMF already has projected the US economy will shrink 2.8 percent this year.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it's a "little too early to determine the economic impact" but the Treasury Department and agencies are "monitoring the situation and looking into it."
Still, most experts don't think a swine-flu outbreak by itself would eliminate many U.S. jobs or severely worsen the economy.
Simon Johnson, former IMF chief economist and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, envisions only a "small hit" to economic activity in the United States—just a few tenths of 1 percentage point.
Still, markets were down sharply overall, with Japan's benchmark off 2.7 percent and South Korea's shedding 3 percent. London's FTSE and Germany's DAX both slumped 2 percent or more.
The unease extended to companies and tour groups from China to South Korea, where Samsung Electronics Co told its employees not to travel to Mexico on business.
In Hong Kong, among the cities hardest hit by the SARS epidemic six years ago, one travel agency scrapped trips to Los Angeles because of the city's proximity to Mexico. A second said it was canceling an 18-day excursion to Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela as a result of swine fu.
"This outbreak looks very serious," said Roger Hong, deputy general manager of Hong Kong-based Goldjoy Travel. "The outbreak has just begun. We don't know how far it has spread."
The flu could also hurt the $5 billion export market for US pork. China, Russia and Ukraine banned imports of pork and pork products from Mexico and three U.S. states that have reported cases of swine flu. Other governments were increasing screening of pork imports.
Even though it's safe to eat pork (swine flu viruses don't spread through food), analysts still expect an impact on the industry.
"Though there is no evidence that swine flu can be obtained by eating pork, the fear generated by a disease named after hogs cannot be good for pork consumption," said JPMorgan analyst Ken Goldman.
Despite the growing alarm, the world is now better equipped to deal with cross-border health crises after being tested by SARS and bird flu.
Vaccines can be rolled out fairly quickly. Many big companies now have contingency plans to keep essential operations going if employees can't make it to work. And compared with previous crises, this time around has witnessed relatively quick responses and transparency from governments—two factors critical to keeping up public confidence, analysts say.
"On the one hand, it's a terrible and traumatic thing—a flu pandemic," Johnson said. "On the other hand, it almost certainly will not have a significant effect."
Also contributing to this report: Associated Press Writers Jeremiah Marquez and Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong, Jeannine Aversa in Washington, Oliver Teves in Manila, Kelly Olsen and Ji Youn Oh in Seoul, Joe McDonald in Beijing, and Anthony Deutsch in Jakarta.
PARIS — The threat of a swine flu pandemic kept global businesses and investors on edge Tuesday, disrupting travel plans and sending stock markets down on fears the outbreak could worsen and cause more economic misery.
Days after news of the deadly virus outbreak in Mexico, stocks of companies in the travel and tourism industry were being hammered on fears that worried travelers would stay home.
Across Asia, tour groups abandoned more holiday jaunts to the country amid a series of government warnings. Airports from Indonesia to Australia tightened their screening of travelers.
In Moscow, the US Embassy issued a statement saying there was "no basis" for Russia's decision to bar pork imports from three US states, saying the disease was not spread through meat products, and hoping that normal trade would soon resume.
Much of the fallout hit financial markets jittery about the future, as opposed to the real economy. Shares in Europe's largest airline Air France-KLM continued the sharp drop begun Monday, falling an additional 2.85 percent to €8.16 on Tuesday. Shares in European hotel giant Accor SA, which operates 9 Sofitel and nearly 1,000 Motel 6 hotels in the United States, slid 4.35 percent to €30.10.
Shares in Euro Disney, which earlier Tuesday said its net loss nearly doubled to €85.4 million in the fiscal first half, were meanwhile down 9.8 percent at €3.60.
The disease, while still largely corralled in North America, has spread rapidly in recent days with the World Health Organization raising its global alert level and moving closer to declaring a flu pandemic as infections cropped up in Europe. Asia's first cases were confirmed in New Zealand; another case emerged in Israel. The virus is suspected in about 150 deaths, all in Mexico.
With the world economy already seen shrinking 1.3 percent this year by the International Monetary Fund, swine flu could add more stress by further eroding trade, consumer spending and investment—snuffing out what many say are the glimmers of a recovery.
"This certainly could exacerbate the recession," said Sherman Chan, an economist with Moody's in Australia. "The next couple weeks will be crucial. If this persists it could become a more serious concern and really cripple the economy."
For the US economy, any turnaround could be delayed well into 2010 as gross domestic product contracts more than expected. In a worst-case scenario, the US economy would shrink by an extra 0.3 percent this year, on top of a predicted 3.5 percent decline, says Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight. That amounts to a roughly $50 billion loss of economic activity, he said. The IMF already has projected the US economy will shrink 2.8 percent this year.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it's a "little too early to determine the economic impact" but the Treasury Department and agencies are "monitoring the situation and looking into it."
Still, most experts don't think a swine-flu outbreak by itself would eliminate many U.S. jobs or severely worsen the economy.
Simon Johnson, former IMF chief economist and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, envisions only a "small hit" to economic activity in the United States—just a few tenths of 1 percentage point.
Still, markets were down sharply overall, with Japan's benchmark off 2.7 percent and South Korea's shedding 3 percent. London's FTSE and Germany's DAX both slumped 2 percent or more.
The unease extended to companies and tour groups from China to South Korea, where Samsung Electronics Co told its employees not to travel to Mexico on business.
In Hong Kong, among the cities hardest hit by the SARS epidemic six years ago, one travel agency scrapped trips to Los Angeles because of the city's proximity to Mexico. A second said it was canceling an 18-day excursion to Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela as a result of swine fu.
"This outbreak looks very serious," said Roger Hong, deputy general manager of Hong Kong-based Goldjoy Travel. "The outbreak has just begun. We don't know how far it has spread."
The flu could also hurt the $5 billion export market for US pork. China, Russia and Ukraine banned imports of pork and pork products from Mexico and three U.S. states that have reported cases of swine flu. Other governments were increasing screening of pork imports.
Even though it's safe to eat pork (swine flu viruses don't spread through food), analysts still expect an impact on the industry.
"Though there is no evidence that swine flu can be obtained by eating pork, the fear generated by a disease named after hogs cannot be good for pork consumption," said JPMorgan analyst Ken Goldman.
Despite the growing alarm, the world is now better equipped to deal with cross-border health crises after being tested by SARS and bird flu.
Vaccines can be rolled out fairly quickly. Many big companies now have contingency plans to keep essential operations going if employees can't make it to work. And compared with previous crises, this time around has witnessed relatively quick responses and transparency from governments—two factors critical to keeping up public confidence, analysts say.
"On the one hand, it's a terrible and traumatic thing—a flu pandemic," Johnson said. "On the other hand, it almost certainly will not have a significant effect."
Also contributing to this report: Associated Press Writers Jeremiah Marquez and Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong, Jeannine Aversa in Washington, Oliver Teves in Manila, Kelly Olsen and Ji Youn Oh in Seoul, Joe McDonald in Beijing, and Anthony Deutsch in Jakarta.
April 28, 2009
NLD Hold First General Meeting in a Decade
By MIN LWIN
Sixty-three senior officials of Burma’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) and 95 elected members of parliament from the party gathered today for their first general meeting in more than a decade.
“At least 150 NLD members attended the meeting,” said Soe Win, one of the attendees, adding that foreign diplomats and reporters were also present at an opening ceremony held this morning.
Win Tin, a prominent member of the party’s central executive committee (CEC) who was released last year after 19 years in prison, delivered the opening address, he added.
During the two-day gathering, the NLD will discuss the three key issues of party organization, constitutional review and the party’s stance on recent political developments, according to Ohn Kyaing, an NLD spokesperson.
Asked to elaborate, Ohn Kyaing declined to provide further details.
“We will release an official statement soon,” he said, adding simply that the party would “discuss all the issues that people are talking about.”
The most pressing issue facing the party is whether it will take part in a junta-sponsored election planned for next year. Under existing election rules, any party that fails to field at least three candidates in the election must be disbanded.
“It is a challenge for the NLD, because if the party is deregistered, what will it do?” said Nyo Ohn Myint of the exiled National league for Democracy—Liberated Area (NLD-LA).
However, NLD chairman Aung Shwe indicated today that the party wouldn’t allow the junta to force its hand.
Speaking at the opening of the party meeting, Aung Shwe said the NLD would wait until new election and party registration laws come out before making a decision on whether to participate in the election.
“We have to wait and see whether they will be based on democratic principles,” Aung Shwe said at the opening of the party meeting.
The NLD has so far expressed little interest in taking part in the election, which would be the first since 1990, when the party won 82 percent of the seats. Most of the party’s 392 elected officials have since been forced to resign or have gone into exile. At least 13 are still in prisons across the country.
The last time the party attempted to hold a general meeting, in 1998, dozens of elected members were detained and interrogated by the military authorities. The party last held a meeting in 1997.
According to reports, police were deployed near party headquarters on Monday while dozens of plainclothes policemen watched the building from across the street and a convoy of four to seven trucks carrying anti-riot police cruised the city.
Sixty-three senior officials of Burma’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) and 95 elected members of parliament from the party gathered today for their first general meeting in more than a decade.
“At least 150 NLD members attended the meeting,” said Soe Win, one of the attendees, adding that foreign diplomats and reporters were also present at an opening ceremony held this morning.
Win Tin, a prominent member of the party’s central executive committee (CEC) who was released last year after 19 years in prison, delivered the opening address, he added.
During the two-day gathering, the NLD will discuss the three key issues of party organization, constitutional review and the party’s stance on recent political developments, according to Ohn Kyaing, an NLD spokesperson.
Asked to elaborate, Ohn Kyaing declined to provide further details.
“We will release an official statement soon,” he said, adding simply that the party would “discuss all the issues that people are talking about.”
The most pressing issue facing the party is whether it will take part in a junta-sponsored election planned for next year. Under existing election rules, any party that fails to field at least three candidates in the election must be disbanded.
“It is a challenge for the NLD, because if the party is deregistered, what will it do?” said Nyo Ohn Myint of the exiled National league for Democracy—Liberated Area (NLD-LA).
However, NLD chairman Aung Shwe indicated today that the party wouldn’t allow the junta to force its hand.
Speaking at the opening of the party meeting, Aung Shwe said the NLD would wait until new election and party registration laws come out before making a decision on whether to participate in the election.
“We have to wait and see whether they will be based on democratic principles,” Aung Shwe said at the opening of the party meeting.
The NLD has so far expressed little interest in taking part in the election, which would be the first since 1990, when the party won 82 percent of the seats. Most of the party’s 392 elected officials have since been forced to resign or have gone into exile. At least 13 are still in prisons across the country.
The last time the party attempted to hold a general meeting, in 1998, dozens of elected members were detained and interrogated by the military authorities. The party last held a meeting in 1997.
According to reports, police were deployed near party headquarters on Monday while dozens of plainclothes policemen watched the building from across the street and a convoy of four to seven trucks carrying anti-riot police cruised the city.
Why Boycott Just Makes Things Worse
By ERIK SOLHEIM
Cut off contact with Hamas! Don't talk to Israel! Keep away from Burma! Over the past few years there have been calls from many quarters to break off contact with regimes we don't like. Few, however, seem to have a realistic idea of whether breaking off contact works, or what kind of regime it might work on.
In this context it is worth recalling the words of former Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, more of a hawk than a dove: "If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies."
Dialogue is not a goal in itself. The goal is to reduce conflict and save lives. We must be clear at all times about our basic values, which include respect for the individual, human rights and democracy.
For more than 20 years, I have been a champion of human rights and democracy in Burma. A number of times I've thought that a major breakthrough was imminent, but I was always disappointed. At the end of January I was in Burma and saw with my own eyes that in many respects the country has stood still for the past several decades.
Since a military junta seized control of the country in 1988, the West's response has been to isolate it. The regime has refused to implement political and economic reforms. It's time to think of a new approach.
Isolation rarely leads to improvements in a country, but it often creates considerable problems for the people living there. Experience has shown that democratic development is closely linked to the emergence of a middle class. It is the middle class that has the resources to become politically engaged in promoting freedom of expression and other social progress, not the poor, whose hands are full trying to keep their children from going hungry. If a country is isolated from the rest of the world, no middle class will emerge, and achieving democratic development will be far more difficult.
According to East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta, if Indonesia had been isolated in the same way as Burma, it would still be a dictatorship and East Timor would not have won its independence in 2002. Democratic development has also been closely linked to the emergence of a middle class in Thailand, South Korea, and most other countries in eastern Asia.
Because of isolation, few Burmese receive any stimulus from the outside world, and fewer yet are aware of how far Burma lags behind neighbors like Thailand and China, both economically and technologically. If Burma's military leaders are given more opportunity to travel abroad, they will be more likely to say as Mikhail Gorbachev once did: "We cannot live like this any longer."
One of the hallmarks of Norway today is that we are nearly always willing to talk to everyone. This has given us a special role in a number of conflicts. Because we could talk to Hamas and were thus among the first to establish contact with the Palestinian National Unity Government, we have had unique access to the negotiations in the Middle East conflict. In Sri Lanka we were among the few who had contact with both the Tamil Tigers and the authorities. We met with the Nepalese Maoists before anyone else. Now the Maoists are represented in the national assembly and the prime minister is from their party. We talk to Communist guerrillas in the Philippines, and have contact with rebel groups in Burundi and Sudan. When the parties in strife-torn Zimbabwe decided to establish a government of national unity, we started a dialogue with all of them.
The fact we have contact with regimes and armed groups doesn't mean that we accept their views but simply that we have an opportunity for dialogue.
The emergency relief effort that followed cyclone Nargis' devastation of Burma last year showed that it was possible to get much-needed aid to the people of the country. The UN and NGOs did a wonderful job. The participants in the relief effort described the situation as a "humanitarian space," which Norway, together with many other Western and Asian countries, has helped to fill. This space opened up because the UN secretary-general and the regime talked together.
Now it is essential that we help to preserve this space and eventually extend it to the rest of the country.
Burma is facing major challenges because of the financial crisis. The military regime is planning elections, which are certain to be neither free nor fair. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is still being kept under strict house arrest. Unfortunately there is little hope of any democratic breakthrough in the near future. We must take a longer, historical perspective; openness and dialogue are bound to be more effective than isolation.
Erik Solheim is Norwegian Minister of the Environment and International Development. He wrote this commentary for IPS.
Cut off contact with Hamas! Don't talk to Israel! Keep away from Burma! Over the past few years there have been calls from many quarters to break off contact with regimes we don't like. Few, however, seem to have a realistic idea of whether breaking off contact works, or what kind of regime it might work on.
In this context it is worth recalling the words of former Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, more of a hawk than a dove: "If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies."
Dialogue is not a goal in itself. The goal is to reduce conflict and save lives. We must be clear at all times about our basic values, which include respect for the individual, human rights and democracy.
For more than 20 years, I have been a champion of human rights and democracy in Burma. A number of times I've thought that a major breakthrough was imminent, but I was always disappointed. At the end of January I was in Burma and saw with my own eyes that in many respects the country has stood still for the past several decades.
Since a military junta seized control of the country in 1988, the West's response has been to isolate it. The regime has refused to implement political and economic reforms. It's time to think of a new approach.
Isolation rarely leads to improvements in a country, but it often creates considerable problems for the people living there. Experience has shown that democratic development is closely linked to the emergence of a middle class. It is the middle class that has the resources to become politically engaged in promoting freedom of expression and other social progress, not the poor, whose hands are full trying to keep their children from going hungry. If a country is isolated from the rest of the world, no middle class will emerge, and achieving democratic development will be far more difficult.
According to East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta, if Indonesia had been isolated in the same way as Burma, it would still be a dictatorship and East Timor would not have won its independence in 2002. Democratic development has also been closely linked to the emergence of a middle class in Thailand, South Korea, and most other countries in eastern Asia.
Because of isolation, few Burmese receive any stimulus from the outside world, and fewer yet are aware of how far Burma lags behind neighbors like Thailand and China, both economically and technologically. If Burma's military leaders are given more opportunity to travel abroad, they will be more likely to say as Mikhail Gorbachev once did: "We cannot live like this any longer."
One of the hallmarks of Norway today is that we are nearly always willing to talk to everyone. This has given us a special role in a number of conflicts. Because we could talk to Hamas and were thus among the first to establish contact with the Palestinian National Unity Government, we have had unique access to the negotiations in the Middle East conflict. In Sri Lanka we were among the few who had contact with both the Tamil Tigers and the authorities. We met with the Nepalese Maoists before anyone else. Now the Maoists are represented in the national assembly and the prime minister is from their party. We talk to Communist guerrillas in the Philippines, and have contact with rebel groups in Burundi and Sudan. When the parties in strife-torn Zimbabwe decided to establish a government of national unity, we started a dialogue with all of them.
The fact we have contact with regimes and armed groups doesn't mean that we accept their views but simply that we have an opportunity for dialogue.
The emergency relief effort that followed cyclone Nargis' devastation of Burma last year showed that it was possible to get much-needed aid to the people of the country. The UN and NGOs did a wonderful job. The participants in the relief effort described the situation as a "humanitarian space," which Norway, together with many other Western and Asian countries, has helped to fill. This space opened up because the UN secretary-general and the regime talked together.
Now it is essential that we help to preserve this space and eventually extend it to the rest of the country.
Burma is facing major challenges because of the financial crisis. The military regime is planning elections, which are certain to be neither free nor fair. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is still being kept under strict house arrest. Unfortunately there is little hope of any democratic breakthrough in the near future. We must take a longer, historical perspective; openness and dialogue are bound to be more effective than isolation.
Erik Solheim is Norwegian Minister of the Environment and International Development. He wrote this commentary for IPS.
Gov’t Neglect Plays a Role in Diarrhea Outbreak
By WAI MOE
The outbreak of diarrhea cases in poor neighborhoods of Rangoon has highlighted the woeful lack of health care standards, and the military government’s neglect of basic funding to the public health care system.
In terms of the annual budget, each Burmese citizen is allocated about US 70 cents for his or her health care by the military government, according to date gathered by international agencies.
In the wave of illnesses, now entering their third week, five residents in low-income Rangoon townships have died and at least 100 people have suffered diarrhea attacks, largely contracted from unsanitary drinking water or contaminated food. The worst hit areas are North Okkalapa, North and South Dagon Myothit and Thaketa townships.
Two high-ranking officials of the military regime visited the areas this week, state-run-newspapers reported. Brig-Gen Win Myint, the commander of the army’s Rangoon regional command, visited North Okkalapa Township on April 26 and No.2 Ward, one of the worst hit areas, on April 23. The visits followed media reports on the illnesses in the Burmese foreign media.
The deaths and the wave of illnesses have gone unreported in Burmese state-run and private media.
The newspaper report said Win Myint told local residents to use more sanitary waste facilities and to avoid unsafe drinking water.
On Monday, Brig-Gen Aung Thein Linn, the mayor of Rangoon, also visited North Okkalapa. He reportedly said that 40 emergency, fly-safe toilet facilities would be made available to the community in No 2 Ward.
Officials said further improvements in waste disposal would have to be made by local residents who must “stand on their own feet,” according to residents.
Many poor households in North Okkalapa along Nga Moe Yeik Creek, and other areas, commonly lack a sanitary toilet system and human waste contaminates the creek and many underground water sources, according to residents.
Private physicians said diarrhea problems around Rangoon result from substandard drinking water and the lack of sanitary waste disposal, plus contamination of food stuff by flies.
Tap water in Rangoon is usually not fit to drink and very limited. Most residents rely on water wells or ground water.
While there are many factories that manufacture drinking water in Rangoon and other cities in Burma, the price for a 1-liter bottle is 400 kyat ($ 40 cents); a 20-liter bottle ranges from 2,000– 4,000 kyat, prices beyond the means of poor residents who must use their money for food.
According to international agencies, Burma’s gross national income per capita was $220 in 2007, or about 65 cents a day.
“We cannot afford to buy drinking water, so we boil water from the well to escape the diseases in water,” explained a housewife in North Dagon Myothit.
Many residents in North Okkalapa, Dagon Myothit and Thaketha and other areas of Rangoon commonly use only a bamboo covered hole in the ground for waste disposal.
“They cannot afford a concrete toilet structure that is better for their health,” said a Rangoon businessman, who operates a waste facility construction company.
The price for a concrete toilet facility, which limits ground water contamination, is around 100,000 kyat ($100), about one half of a low-income person’s annual wage.
International health agencies have provided plastic toilet facilities for several decades, but health experts said their efforts have not solved the problem of ground water contamination.
Experts said a major factor contributing to the problem is the government’s paltry funding of the health care sector.
According to data from international agencies, 3 percent of the military government’s annual expenditure is allocated to health care, while education receives 10 percent.
Military expenditures account for about 50 percent of the annual budget.
Residents said authorities also ordered roadside food stalls in affected areas to close.
“Now people in our ward are suffering from even greater economic problems because of the order to close the food stalls,” said a resident in North Okkalapa.
The outbreak of diarrhea cases in poor neighborhoods of Rangoon has highlighted the woeful lack of health care standards, and the military government’s neglect of basic funding to the public health care system.
In terms of the annual budget, each Burmese citizen is allocated about US 70 cents for his or her health care by the military government, according to date gathered by international agencies.
In the wave of illnesses, now entering their third week, five residents in low-income Rangoon townships have died and at least 100 people have suffered diarrhea attacks, largely contracted from unsanitary drinking water or contaminated food. The worst hit areas are North Okkalapa, North and South Dagon Myothit and Thaketa townships.
Two high-ranking officials of the military regime visited the areas this week, state-run-newspapers reported. Brig-Gen Win Myint, the commander of the army’s Rangoon regional command, visited North Okkalapa Township on April 26 and No.2 Ward, one of the worst hit areas, on April 23. The visits followed media reports on the illnesses in the Burmese foreign media.
The deaths and the wave of illnesses have gone unreported in Burmese state-run and private media.
The newspaper report said Win Myint told local residents to use more sanitary waste facilities and to avoid unsafe drinking water.
On Monday, Brig-Gen Aung Thein Linn, the mayor of Rangoon, also visited North Okkalapa. He reportedly said that 40 emergency, fly-safe toilet facilities would be made available to the community in No 2 Ward.
Officials said further improvements in waste disposal would have to be made by local residents who must “stand on their own feet,” according to residents.
Many poor households in North Okkalapa along Nga Moe Yeik Creek, and other areas, commonly lack a sanitary toilet system and human waste contaminates the creek and many underground water sources, according to residents.
Private physicians said diarrhea problems around Rangoon result from substandard drinking water and the lack of sanitary waste disposal, plus contamination of food stuff by flies.
Tap water in Rangoon is usually not fit to drink and very limited. Most residents rely on water wells or ground water.
While there are many factories that manufacture drinking water in Rangoon and other cities in Burma, the price for a 1-liter bottle is 400 kyat ($ 40 cents); a 20-liter bottle ranges from 2,000– 4,000 kyat, prices beyond the means of poor residents who must use their money for food.
According to international agencies, Burma’s gross national income per capita was $220 in 2007, or about 65 cents a day.
“We cannot afford to buy drinking water, so we boil water from the well to escape the diseases in water,” explained a housewife in North Dagon Myothit.
Many residents in North Okkalapa, Dagon Myothit and Thaketha and other areas of Rangoon commonly use only a bamboo covered hole in the ground for waste disposal.
“They cannot afford a concrete toilet structure that is better for their health,” said a Rangoon businessman, who operates a waste facility construction company.
The price for a concrete toilet facility, which limits ground water contamination, is around 100,000 kyat ($100), about one half of a low-income person’s annual wage.
International health agencies have provided plastic toilet facilities for several decades, but health experts said their efforts have not solved the problem of ground water contamination.
Experts said a major factor contributing to the problem is the government’s paltry funding of the health care sector.
According to data from international agencies, 3 percent of the military government’s annual expenditure is allocated to health care, while education receives 10 percent.
Military expenditures account for about 50 percent of the annual budget.
Residents said authorities also ordered roadside food stalls in affected areas to close.
“Now people in our ward are suffering from even greater economic problems because of the order to close the food stalls,” said a resident in North Okkalapa.
Burmese, Thai Troops Clash on Border
By THE IRRAWADDY
Two Thai soldiers and one civilian were injured and hundreds of villagers were evacuated as soldiers of the Burmese army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) launched a cross border attack along the Thai-Burmese border on Monday, according to Thai media.
The Thai News Agency (TNA) reported that two Thai soldiers and one villager were injured in the border skirmish as more than 200 Burmese troops and DKBA guerrillas engaged in a joint assault on a base of the Karen National Union (KNU) on the Burmese side of the border.
The joint operation against the KNU occurred opposite a Thai village in Phop Phra District in Tak Province near the border. During the operation, Burmese troops crossed into Thailand.
Col Padung Yingpaiboonsuk, the commander of a special task force of the 34th Infantry Regiment of the Royal Thai Army, said at least three mortar shells landed on Thai territory, and the Burmese and DKBA troops clashed with Thai troops near the border, according to the TNA report.
The TNA said that about 200 Thai villagers near the skirmish area were temporarily evacuated to a Buddhist temple.
KNU sources said that since earlier April, Burmese troops along with the DKBA have undertaken a major assault on Valeki, a Burmese camp of the Karen rebel military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA).
More than a dozen persons have reportedly died in the clashes, including a KNLA colonel identified as Saw Jay.
Last week, a rumor of a potential attack by the Burmese army and the DKBA spread through Karen refugee camps along the border.
During a visit by the Thai foreign minister to Burma in March, Burmese officials asked Thailand to serve in a mediation role in peace talks with Karen officials. The KNU has fought for Karen autonomy for more than six decades.
On April 6, a meeting in Burma between the Thai foreign minister and KNU representatives occurred in which a letter from Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein was given to the KNU, offering to meet for peace negotiations.
The KNU said at the meeting that any peace talks should be held in a third country.
KNU sources said that the offer could be related to the 2010 Burmese elections in an effort to give more legitimacy to the junta’s election in the eyes of the international community.
However, the KNU said in a statement on Sunday that the election would not be free or fair and renewed its call for the release of all political prisoners and the halt of all military offensives against ethnic minorities.
“We are working for a peaceful, stable, federal Burma,” said the KNU statement. “We stand ready to enter into a genuine tripartite dialogue, as facilitated by the United Nations at any time.”
Two Thai soldiers and one civilian were injured and hundreds of villagers were evacuated as soldiers of the Burmese army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) launched a cross border attack along the Thai-Burmese border on Monday, according to Thai media.
The Thai News Agency (TNA) reported that two Thai soldiers and one villager were injured in the border skirmish as more than 200 Burmese troops and DKBA guerrillas engaged in a joint assault on a base of the Karen National Union (KNU) on the Burmese side of the border.
The joint operation against the KNU occurred opposite a Thai village in Phop Phra District in Tak Province near the border. During the operation, Burmese troops crossed into Thailand.
Col Padung Yingpaiboonsuk, the commander of a special task force of the 34th Infantry Regiment of the Royal Thai Army, said at least three mortar shells landed on Thai territory, and the Burmese and DKBA troops clashed with Thai troops near the border, according to the TNA report.
The TNA said that about 200 Thai villagers near the skirmish area were temporarily evacuated to a Buddhist temple.
KNU sources said that since earlier April, Burmese troops along with the DKBA have undertaken a major assault on Valeki, a Burmese camp of the Karen rebel military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA).
More than a dozen persons have reportedly died in the clashes, including a KNLA colonel identified as Saw Jay.
Last week, a rumor of a potential attack by the Burmese army and the DKBA spread through Karen refugee camps along the border.
During a visit by the Thai foreign minister to Burma in March, Burmese officials asked Thailand to serve in a mediation role in peace talks with Karen officials. The KNU has fought for Karen autonomy for more than six decades.
On April 6, a meeting in Burma between the Thai foreign minister and KNU representatives occurred in which a letter from Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein was given to the KNU, offering to meet for peace negotiations.
The KNU said at the meeting that any peace talks should be held in a third country.
KNU sources said that the offer could be related to the 2010 Burmese elections in an effort to give more legitimacy to the junta’s election in the eyes of the international community.
However, the KNU said in a statement on Sunday that the election would not be free or fair and renewed its call for the release of all political prisoners and the halt of all military offensives against ethnic minorities.
“We are working for a peaceful, stable, federal Burma,” said the KNU statement. “We stand ready to enter into a genuine tripartite dialogue, as facilitated by the United Nations at any time.”
Cyclone Fears Still Stalk the Villages
By KYI WAI / KUNCHANGONE / RANGOON DIVISION
One year after Cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy Delta, villagers in the region watch the skies daily for signs of another killer storm. Weather forecasts on the radio command a big following.
When the government's department of meteorology and hydrology warned earlier this month of the approach across the Bay of Bengal of another storm, Cyclone Bijli, panic broke out.
The abbot of one village, Yae Tain, in Kaw Hmu Township, tried to restore calm by telling local people by megaphone that they had nothing to fear. “People were packing up to leave for Rangoon,” said one villager. “Everybody was afraid.”
Daw Thuza, 62, has every reason to be nervous whenever bad weather threatens—she lost her son and daughter-in-law when Cyclone Nargis hit their village. Her fisherman son and his wife both drowned.
Their small son saved his grandmother by waking her as the storm struck. She calls him to her side whenever bad weather now looms, and together they pack emergency supplies in a bin-bag. Into the bag go supplies they received after Cyclone Nargis—including a UNICEF backpack and a plastic sheet marked "assisted by donors from Thein-Gyi market."
One seven-year-old, orphaned by the cyclone, was so traumatized that he hides in a box whenever bad weather now occurs.
When Cyclone Nargis struck, the boy’s grandfather told him to seek shelter in a box. The grandfather died but the little boy survived.
“Whenever he now hears a storm is expected, he gets into his box,” said the boy’s aunt. “He even sleeps there.”
In Taw Palae ward, where virtually every household suffered a cyclone death, one villager said: “My wife is so scared still she listens to the weather forecasts all the time.”
Taw Palae is a fishing community and one third of its residents are thought to have died in the cyclone.
In many villages, families have been advised to send older people and children to stay with relatives in Rangoon and other cities away from the Irrawaddy delta seaboard. One 28-year-old woman from Chaung Gyi village, in Labutta’s Pyin Salu sub-Township, said she had moved to Rangoon after hearing that six severe storms were expected in the coming monsoon.
One Cyclone Nargis survivor, Kyaw Ko Ko, who has been employed in post-cyclone reconstruction projects, said: “People can’t be blamed for being so nervous. They’ve gone through terrible experiences.”
Some non-governmental organizations and groups have been giving post-cyclone trauma care and counseling but the work load is overwhelming and the resources are limited.
“Our ability to help is very limited,” said a volunteer with the Nyein Foundation. "We help people as best we can, despite the difficulties.”
A physician working with a mobile clinic said many cyclone survivors were still in material need, living in temporary shelters with insufficient food and clothing.
“Much is still urgently needed,” he said. “Shelters, food and clothing. As long as we can't provide them, these people can’t live normal lives.”
One year after Cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy Delta, villagers in the region watch the skies daily for signs of another killer storm. Weather forecasts on the radio command a big following.
When the government's department of meteorology and hydrology warned earlier this month of the approach across the Bay of Bengal of another storm, Cyclone Bijli, panic broke out.
The abbot of one village, Yae Tain, in Kaw Hmu Township, tried to restore calm by telling local people by megaphone that they had nothing to fear. “People were packing up to leave for Rangoon,” said one villager. “Everybody was afraid.”
Daw Thuza, 62, has every reason to be nervous whenever bad weather threatens—she lost her son and daughter-in-law when Cyclone Nargis hit their village. Her fisherman son and his wife both drowned.
Their small son saved his grandmother by waking her as the storm struck. She calls him to her side whenever bad weather now looms, and together they pack emergency supplies in a bin-bag. Into the bag go supplies they received after Cyclone Nargis—including a UNICEF backpack and a plastic sheet marked "assisted by donors from Thein-Gyi market."
One seven-year-old, orphaned by the cyclone, was so traumatized that he hides in a box whenever bad weather now occurs.
When Cyclone Nargis struck, the boy’s grandfather told him to seek shelter in a box. The grandfather died but the little boy survived.
“Whenever he now hears a storm is expected, he gets into his box,” said the boy’s aunt. “He even sleeps there.”
In Taw Palae ward, where virtually every household suffered a cyclone death, one villager said: “My wife is so scared still she listens to the weather forecasts all the time.”
Taw Palae is a fishing community and one third of its residents are thought to have died in the cyclone.
In many villages, families have been advised to send older people and children to stay with relatives in Rangoon and other cities away from the Irrawaddy delta seaboard. One 28-year-old woman from Chaung Gyi village, in Labutta’s Pyin Salu sub-Township, said she had moved to Rangoon after hearing that six severe storms were expected in the coming monsoon.
One Cyclone Nargis survivor, Kyaw Ko Ko, who has been employed in post-cyclone reconstruction projects, said: “People can’t be blamed for being so nervous. They’ve gone through terrible experiences.”
Some non-governmental organizations and groups have been giving post-cyclone trauma care and counseling but the work load is overwhelming and the resources are limited.
“Our ability to help is very limited,” said a volunteer with the Nyein Foundation. "We help people as best we can, despite the difficulties.”
A physician working with a mobile clinic said many cyclone survivors were still in material need, living in temporary shelters with insufficient food and clothing.
“Much is still urgently needed,” he said. “Shelters, food and clothing. As long as we can't provide them, these people can’t live normal lives.”
Refugee Kids in Malaysia Help Burma Storm Survivors
By VIJAY JOSHI / AP WRITER
KUALA LUMPUR — When the teacher asked her class how it can help Cyclone Nargis victims in Burma, Steven Bawmying suggested laying a long underground pipe to send drinking water from Malaysia.
The plan didn't fly, but Steven and other children in the school for Burmese refugees came up with a better idea: They wrote short pieces about their lives—mostly sad tales of survival—published them in a colorful children's book and earned 25,000 ringgit ($7,000) from its sale.
On Tuesday, the children donated the money to World Vision, a Christian charity group, ahead of the first anniversary of the cyclone, which slammed into Burma's coast on May 2, 2008, leaving nearly 140,000 dead or missing.
Tens of thousands more were left homeless and destitute as the cyclone cut a swath of destruction through the country's main rice-growing area. World Vision has an extensive relief program in Burma.
"I saw on TV a lot of people were suffering. People had no water so I wanted to help," said Steven, who is now 12. "I told the teacher we can connect a lot of pipes together all the way from here to Myanmar [Burma]."
Steven is among the 160 ethnic Kachin minority children at the school in Kuala Lumpur operated by volunteers.
The UN has registered 47,600 refugees living in Malaysia, of whom 42,300 are from Burma, having fled the country's repressive military regime.
Belle Luer, a volunteer teacher at the school, said she was moved by the children's willingness to help the cyclone victims. One girl said she could write letters of love and encouragement and others said they would save 10 cents every day, she said.
Ultimately, the kids decided to publish the book, "My Beautiful Myanmar," which has 23 stories and drawings, mostly about persecution and escape from the military authorities.
Thanks to a discount offered by the printer, Luer was able to print the 40-page book cheaply. It is now on sale for 15 ringgit ($4) at Borders bookstore. She said she hopes to raise 100,000 ringgit ($28,000) from it.
"We are humbled by these little ones. They may be young and small but they are giants in spirit," said Liew Tong Ngan, the head of World Vision Malaysia, who accepted the initial check of 25,000 ringgit.
KUALA LUMPUR — When the teacher asked her class how it can help Cyclone Nargis victims in Burma, Steven Bawmying suggested laying a long underground pipe to send drinking water from Malaysia.
The plan didn't fly, but Steven and other children in the school for Burmese refugees came up with a better idea: They wrote short pieces about their lives—mostly sad tales of survival—published them in a colorful children's book and earned 25,000 ringgit ($7,000) from its sale.
On Tuesday, the children donated the money to World Vision, a Christian charity group, ahead of the first anniversary of the cyclone, which slammed into Burma's coast on May 2, 2008, leaving nearly 140,000 dead or missing.
Tens of thousands more were left homeless and destitute as the cyclone cut a swath of destruction through the country's main rice-growing area. World Vision has an extensive relief program in Burma.
"I saw on TV a lot of people were suffering. People had no water so I wanted to help," said Steven, who is now 12. "I told the teacher we can connect a lot of pipes together all the way from here to Myanmar [Burma]."
Steven is among the 160 ethnic Kachin minority children at the school in Kuala Lumpur operated by volunteers.
The UN has registered 47,600 refugees living in Malaysia, of whom 42,300 are from Burma, having fled the country's repressive military regime.
Belle Luer, a volunteer teacher at the school, said she was moved by the children's willingness to help the cyclone victims. One girl said she could write letters of love and encouragement and others said they would save 10 cents every day, she said.
Ultimately, the kids decided to publish the book, "My Beautiful Myanmar," which has 23 stories and drawings, mostly about persecution and escape from the military authorities.
Thanks to a discount offered by the printer, Luer was able to print the 40-page book cheaply. It is now on sale for 15 ringgit ($4) at Borders bookstore. She said she hopes to raise 100,000 ringgit ($28,000) from it.
"We are humbled by these little ones. They may be young and small but they are giants in spirit," said Liew Tong Ngan, the head of World Vision Malaysia, who accepted the initial check of 25,000 ringgit.
10 Killed by Suspected Insurgents in Thailand
By SUMETH PANPETCH / AP WRITER
PATTANI, Thailand — Suspected Muslim insurgents killed ten civilians in a flurry of attacks in the insurgency-plagued southern Thailand, the army said Tuesday, the fifth anniversary of a bloody assault by security forces against militants at a mosque.
In the deadliest incident, at least six gunmen in a pickup truck stormed into a house in Yala province late Monday, opening fire on a Muslim family of five, army spokesman Col Parinya Chaidilok said. Four people were killed.
Parinya says two Muslim rubber plantation workers were later found dead in the compound of a nearby mosque. Thai security officials blamed Islamic insurgents bent on stirring up communal tension between Buddhists and Muslims.
The incidents came ahead of the fifth anniversary of the April 28, 2004, assault on the Krue Se mosque by Thai security forces, in which 32 insurgents were killed.
Other clashes the same day between Muslims and government forces resulted in the deaths of a total of 107 people at the hands of security forces, turning the mosque attack into a symbol of the heavy-handed tactics of Thai authorities.
The killings fueled a nascent insurgency that has claimed more than 3,400 lives in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat and some parts of neighboring Songkhla.
In the latest attack, a Buddhist government official was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting Tuesday in Pattani, Parinya said. In a separate incident Monday evening, gunmen fatally shot a Muslim who served as a government-hired security volunteer in Yala province.
Another Muslim man was killed in a drive-by shooting in the same province Monday evening.
In another district of Yala province, suspected militants fatally shot a Buddhist rubber plantation worker Tuesday.
Insurgent attacks—which include drive-by shootings and bombings—are believed intended to frighten Buddhist residents into leaving the area. They also target Muslims who they believe have collaborated with the government, including soldiers, police, informants and civilians.
The identity and precise goals of the insurgents have never been publicly declared, and responsibility is rarely claimed for attacks. They pursue an ill-defined agenda that sometimes seems to call for an Islamic state separate from Buddhist-dominated Thailand, but is mostly a reaction to a history of discrimination.
Southern Muslims have long complained of discrimination, especial in educational and job opportunities, in Buddhist-dominated Thailand.
PATTANI, Thailand — Suspected Muslim insurgents killed ten civilians in a flurry of attacks in the insurgency-plagued southern Thailand, the army said Tuesday, the fifth anniversary of a bloody assault by security forces against militants at a mosque.
In the deadliest incident, at least six gunmen in a pickup truck stormed into a house in Yala province late Monday, opening fire on a Muslim family of five, army spokesman Col Parinya Chaidilok said. Four people were killed.
Parinya says two Muslim rubber plantation workers were later found dead in the compound of a nearby mosque. Thai security officials blamed Islamic insurgents bent on stirring up communal tension between Buddhists and Muslims.
The incidents came ahead of the fifth anniversary of the April 28, 2004, assault on the Krue Se mosque by Thai security forces, in which 32 insurgents were killed.
Other clashes the same day between Muslims and government forces resulted in the deaths of a total of 107 people at the hands of security forces, turning the mosque attack into a symbol of the heavy-handed tactics of Thai authorities.
The killings fueled a nascent insurgency that has claimed more than 3,400 lives in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat and some parts of neighboring Songkhla.
In the latest attack, a Buddhist government official was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting Tuesday in Pattani, Parinya said. In a separate incident Monday evening, gunmen fatally shot a Muslim who served as a government-hired security volunteer in Yala province.
Another Muslim man was killed in a drive-by shooting in the same province Monday evening.
In another district of Yala province, suspected militants fatally shot a Buddhist rubber plantation worker Tuesday.
Insurgent attacks—which include drive-by shootings and bombings—are believed intended to frighten Buddhist residents into leaving the area. They also target Muslims who they believe have collaborated with the government, including soldiers, police, informants and civilians.
The identity and precise goals of the insurgents have never been publicly declared, and responsibility is rarely claimed for attacks. They pursue an ill-defined agenda that sometimes seems to call for an Islamic state separate from Buddhist-dominated Thailand, but is mostly a reaction to a history of discrimination.
Southern Muslims have long complained of discrimination, especial in educational and job opportunities, in Buddhist-dominated Thailand.
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