Burma News

MILITARY-RULED Burma, among the globe's poorest and most authoritarian nations, is reeling from a natural disaster of such magnitude that both the people's suffering and political aftershocks are certain to persist long after the last emergency aid has been doled out.

As bloated bodies are counted and survivors face disease and hunger in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, dramatic scenarios are foreseen in a country that has changed little since an army coup 46 years ago.

These range from a revolt led by disenchanted army officers to the specter of the entrenched, xenophobic junta allowing thousands more to perish rather than risk its grip on power by opening gates to the outside world.

"If a split in the Burmese military between reformist and hard-line elements doesn't occur now, it will never occur," said Donald M Seekins, a Burma expert at Okinawa's Meio University.

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A sprawling new capital dubbed the "Abode of Kings", lavish weddings for family members, palatial villas -- Myanmar's ruling generals appear to have few qualms about spending money.

After more than 45 years of isolation and military rule, Myanmar is officially one of the world's poorest countries, with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) well below that of nearby Cambodia, Laos and Bangladesh.

The junta spends just 0.3 percent of GDP on health care, and 1.3 per cent on education, UN figures show. Yet while ordinary people grow poorer, critics say the generals have been lining their pockets with profits from the nation's vast bounty of oil, gas, tropical hardwood forests, and mines brimming with gems.

Economic sanctions from Europe and the United States were tightened after last year's deadly crackdown on demonstrations sparked by rising fuel costs, but booming Thailand, India and China continue to be big customers.

A semi-official Myanmar newspaper reported last month that the country earned 2.7 billion dollars from gas exports in 2007, an 80 percent increase from the previous year as more wells come on line. Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar's economy with Australia's Macquarie University, estimates that the top generals have about four billion dollars in foreign exchange reserves.

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“But even those are running out.”

Apart from the sound of children crying, the town of Labutta is strangely silent.

Traumatized by the ordeal of surviving Cyclone Nargis, few people have anything to say. But it is also fear bred by 46 years of repression by military regimes that keeps them quiet.

Although overwhelmed by the worst disaster in Myanmar's recent history, the junta has turned down foreign help and insists on using its ragtag infrastructure and poorly equipped military to conduct a grossly mismanaged relief operation for some 2 million people in distress. Read more

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Burma's military regime has plastered boxes containing international relief supplies with the names of top generals.

State-run television continuously showed images of the country's top generals -- including Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the junta's leader -- handing out boxes at ceremonies.

The junta has so far refused to allow foreign experts to deliver aid to assist their country, ravaged by Cyclone Nardis, saying it will only accept donations and then take responsibility for distribution.

"We have already seen regional commanders putting their names on the side of aid shipments from Asia, saying this was a gift from them and then distributing it in their region," said Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK. "It is not going to areas where it is most in need," he said in London.

Richard Horsey, who speaks for the United Nations' humanitarian operations, said international organizations are needed to examine the logistics of getting help into the Irrawaddy delta, the worst-hit area. "That's a critical bottleneck that must be overcome at this point," he said in Bangkok. Burma's government has only a few dozen helicopters and almost no transport plane capacity.

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The military junta that rules Myanmar held a planned referendum on a new constitution Saturday despite the widespread devastation caused by last week's fatal cyclone.

The government has postponed the voting in cyclone-affected areas, but U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has urged the government to delay the referendum altogether so it can focus on cyclone relief efforts.

The ruling junta was on Friday criticized by the United Nations for allowing aid planes to land but then refusing to let foreign charity workers distribute the supplies.

It then softened its stance, with Myanmar's U.N. ambassador saying, "We are ready to speed up and strengthen our relief effort. We will accept aid from any corner."

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First off, I'm not sure what's more tragic: the damage caused by the cyclone or the paranoid Myanmar government's refusal to let in outside aid workers -- letting their own citizens die. As an American citizen, this especially pisses me off because it's not too often that I agree with the decisions of my president.

I fully support Bush in his offer to give aid to the suffering Myanmar people, so please, for the love of the flying spaghetti monster, take it. I assure you want we treat your country like Iraq, OK?

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A SHIPMENT of high-energy biscuits that could feed 95,000 survivors of Burma's Cyclone Nargis remains impounded by customs at the airport in Burma's largest city Rangoon, a World Food Program (WFP) spokesman said.

More than 24 hours after the supplies landed in military-run Burma, they are still no closer to reaching the more than 1.5 million people at risk of disease and starvation in the worst-hit areas, he said.

"My understanding is that it has not yet been released into our hands, but we are working around the clock to get access,'' said Marcus Prior, a Bangkok-based spokesman for WFP.

"We have people who know how to work these channels, and they are.'' He said the biscuits had been unloaded, the aircraft had left Rangoon and negotiations with the junta were ongoing to release the cargo from customs.

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There's at least 50,000 dead round here. But many of the bodies have disappeared. Wading through the swollen waters, we headed out to see the dead. It wasn't long before we came across the first of the corpses, advertising itself with a putrefying stench.

She lay on the bank of a paddy field. At least it appeared to be a woman, but it was difficult to tell. The body was so swollen and distorted, discoloured and bloated by the sun. It had been there for five days and was now almost impossible to identify.

About 30 metres away there was another corpse. The man was locked in an agonising position on his back, arms spread out, as if he had been trying to hold back the tide. His face had turned leathery black in the heat, left here to rot, unidentified and uncollected.

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Now the same river is delivering the dead. The corpses of hundreds of people swept away and killed by the surging tidal wave of Cyclone Nargis are now being washed back.

They lie on the river's edge, snagged in the roots of the mangrove swamps, bloated and burnt by the sun. Many of the corpses have already been buried by family or friends but there are plenty more that lie floating and abandoned, as anonymous in death as they must have been named and known in life.

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Where is the junta's 75-year-old strongman, Senior General Than Shwe? Usually Burma's torpid official press is littered with photographs of him and his deputy, Maung Aye, on official inspection visits, but neither has featured in the official media for the past week.

Some analysts suspect it could mean a power struggle is under way between those in the hierarchy more open to taking in foreign aid and those, General Shwe probably included, who want to continue to keep the world at arm's length.

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