This photo released by the Democratic Voice of Burma on May 9, 2008 shows the bodies of children killed by Cyclone Nargis. It was not known where this location was.
A village in the Irrawaddy Delta is seen May 7, 2008 after the surge from Nargis flooded the area.
This satellite view show Myanmar’s flooded Irrawaddy Delta region on May 7, 2008.
Cyclone Nargis moved across southern Myanmar on the evening of Friday, May 2, leaving a trail of death and destruction before petering out the next day. It devastated much of the fertile Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon, the nation's main city. The storm's winds reached as high as 121 mph at landfall, but most of the thousands of deaths it caused were blamed not directly on its winds, but on a tidal surge that it drove inland from the sea.
May 18, 2008
International Pressure on Myanmar Junta Is Building
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
YANGON, Myanmar — International pressure on the ruling military junta in Myanmar continued to grow over the weekend as a senior United Nations envoy was due to arrive in Yangon on Sunday to talk with government officials about what the United Nations has called a slow response to international aid offers after Cyclone Nargis.
John Holmes, under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, has talks scheduled with top members of the government, although diplomats in Yangon said it was unlikely that Mr. Holmes would be allowed to meet with the junta’s leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe. The general has remained in the remote capital of Naypyidaw, far from the storm-damaged delta in the south.
In the two weeks since the cyclone hit, the junta has allowed in a modest amount of supplies from a number of nations, but relief workers say it is far short of what they need to fend off starvation and disease. The United Nations says only 20 percent of the survivors have received even “rudimentary aid.”
In some of the harshest comments, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain told the BBC on Saturday that a natural disaster “is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international community to do what it wants to do.”
The French ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, warned on Friday that the government’s refusal to allow aid to be delivered to people “could lead to a true crime against humanity,” according to The Associated Press.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations also called an emergency meeting of its foreign ministers for Monday in Singapore.
The association has asked to see a disaster report from the junta and wants to discuss the regime’s refusal to accept more aid and its refusal to allow foreign relief experts into the country. Traditionally, however, the bloc’s political clout with individual members has been weak; one of its founding principles is “non-interference in the internal affairs of one another.”
A French government statement said a navy ship was waiting about 15 miles outside Myanmar’s territorial waters on Saturday, hoping to go in and unload its cargo of 1,000 tons of food — enough to feed 100,000 people for 15 days. The aid also includes shelters for 15,000 people, according to the statement.
France is negotiating with Myanmar on delivering the aid, Rear Adm. Alain Hinden, the ship’s commander said, The A.P. reported.
India also sent 50 Army doctors and paramedics, along with medical supplies to set up emergency medical clinics, to Yangon on Saturday, although it is unclear if they had government approval to travel to affected areas.
All foreigners have been expelled and banned from the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta, even humanitarian aid workers with long experience in Myanmar. Impromptu aid convoys by local groups and private citizens — often with supplies donated by Burmese companies — have been turned back at military checkpoints.
“These guys are xenophobic,” Shari Villarosa, the senior diplomat at the United States Embassy in Yangon, said in a recent interview, referring to the military leadership.
The government said that almost 78,000 people have died and nearly 56,000 more are missing. The Red Cross put the possible death toll at 128,000.
Ms. Villarosa was able to tour parts of the delta on Saturday with Myanmar’s foreign minister, Nyan Win, riding in one of the government’s few working helicopters. They left Yangon at 7 a.m. and returned early in the afternoon; it was the first chance for an American diplomat to see the area since the storm.
“It was a show. That’s what they wanted us to see,” Ms. Villarosa told The A.P. in a telephone interview.
In addition to roadblocks and checkpoints, the junta’s shutdown of the country has included an Internet firewall that blocks most e-mail access. It also has disabled access to a number of computer programs that can evade firewalls, as well as access to dissident Web sites run by exiled Burmese.
Many residents of Myanmar get their daily news from the Burmese-language radio services run by broadcasters like the BBC and Voice of America. They listen to shortwave radios at home, away from neighborhood snitches. If they are discovered listening to the foreign stations, several Yangon residents said, they could be detained or beaten, or they could lose their jobs.
Parts of Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, were still without power Saturday night, two weeks after the storm, and water supplies were sporadic. Gasoline was still being rationed and prices in the market continued to rise — along with civic anger and frustration.
A large banner was hung on the outside of a seven-story apartment building in Yangon that read: “We don’t want gold, we just need water.” In the Burmese language, the written words for gold and water are nearly identical. The banner also took a swipe at General Shwe. In Burmese, shwe means gold.
When a soldier passing through the neighborhood saw the sign, a local resident quickly tore it down.
Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from New Delhi.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/world/asia/18myanmar.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Myanmar regime rejects aid
Junta rejects French ship, shows off camps to diplomats; 'this is inhuman'
The Associated Press
updated 4:43 p.m. ET May 17, 2008
YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's junta kept a French navy ship laden with aid waiting outside its maritime border on Saturday, and showed off neatly laid out state relief camps to diplomats.
The stage-managed tour appeared aimed at countering global criticism of the junta's failure to provide for survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which left at least 134,000 people dead or missing.
The junta flew 60 diplomats and U.N. officials in helicopters to three places in the Irrawaddy delta where camps, aid and survivors were put on display. The diplomats were not swayed.
"It was a show," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told The Associated Press by telephone after returning to Yangon. "That's what they wanted us to see."
Ready but rejected
Meanwhile, a French navy ship that arrived Saturday off Myanmar's shores loaded with food, medication and fresh water was given the now familiar red light, a response that France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, called "nonsense."
"We have small boats which could allow us to go through the delta to most of the regions where no one has accessed yet," he said a day earlier at U.N. headquarters. "We have small helicopters to drop food, and we have doctors."
The USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship, and its battle group have been waiting to join in the relief effort as well. U.S. Marine flights from their makeshift headquarters in Utapao, Thailand, continued Saturday — bringing the total to 500,000 pounds of aid delivered — but negotiations to allow helicopters to fly directly to the disaster zone were stalled.
'This is inhuman'
Britain's prime minister accused authorities in Myanmar of behaving inhumanely by preventing foreign aid from reaching victims, and said the country's regime cares more about its own survival than the welfare of its people.
"This is inhuman," Gordon Brown told the British Broadcasting Corp. in his strongest criticism yet of Myanmar's authoritarian government.
Brown said a natural disaster "is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international community to do what it wants to do."
Myanmar's media, which has repeatedly broadcast footage of generals reassuring refugees calmly sitting in clean tents, announced Friday that the death toll from Cyclone Nargis had nearly doubled to 78,000 with about 56,000 missing.
Aid groups: Estimates are low
According to the international Red Cross, the death toll alone is probably about 128,000, with many more deaths possible from disease and starvation unless help gets quickly to some 2.5 million survivors of the disaster.
But seeing that help gets to the victims is not the first priority of Myanmar's rulers. The military, which took power in a 1962 coup, says all aid must be delivered to the government for distribution and has barred foreigners from leaving Yangon, putting up a security cordon around the country's main city.
Myanmar has been slightly more open to aid from its neighbors.
It has accepted Thai and Indian medical teams, which arrived in Yangon on Saturday. The 32-member Thai team was expected to travel to the delta in the coming days, said Dr. Surachet Satitniramai, director of Thailand's National Medical Emergency Services Institute.
The Indian team consists of 50 doctors and paramedics from the Army Medical Corp., said Indian Air Force spokesman Wing Cmdr. Manish Gandhi. He could not immediately say if they will be allowed to go to the delta.
With the monsoon season coming, Myanmar was bracing for a long haul ahead.
Though patches of hot sun broke through Saturday, heavy rains since the cyclone have hampered relief efforts. Despite the overabundance of water in the flooded delta, shortages of water that is fresh enough to drink grew more severe by the day.
Access to regular supplies of safe drinking water and proper sanitation is essential for preventing waterborne diseases like cholera. Malaria and dengue fever outbreaks also will be a major concern in the coming weeks after mosquitoes have time to breed in the stagnant water.
In one town, tired and hungry refugees stood in the baking sun beside flooded rice paddies, demolished monasteries and thatched huts awaiting food and water. With the arrival of each vehicle carrying precious supplies, they jumped with excitement and surged ahead to get a share.
They were among the lucky ones — aid was actually coming.
"The further you go, the worse the situation," said an overwhelmed doctor in the town of Twante, just southwest of the country's largest city, Yangon, helping a locally organized relief effort there.
"Near Yangon, people are getting a lot of help and it's still bad," said the doctor, who refused to give her name for fear of being punished by the regime. "In the remote delta villages, we don't even want to imagine."
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24665717/page/2/
Q&A: Myanmar protests backgrounder
Who governs the nation? Who are the protesters? Read below for answers
MSNBC staff and news service reports
The largest anti-government demonstrations in nearly two decades have thrust Myanmar into the international spotlight, but for many the core issues remain murky. Here are answers to some common questions:
What are the protests about?
The military government’s decision in August to hike fuel prices by more than double was the immediate cause of the Myanmar protests. The rallies initially were organized by pro-democracy activists, but Buddhist monks became involved after military authorities forcibly broke up a peaceful protest in early September.
Who governs Myanmar?
The State Peace and Development Council, as the ruling junta is formally known, replaced another dictatorship in 1988 after suppressing a pro-democracy uprising. The military has dominated the government for nearly half a century, but the generals have ruled with nearly absolute power since 1990, when the junta refused to hand over power after the main opposition party’s landslide electoral victory.
Who are the main leaders of the government?
First among equals in the current regime is Senior Gen. Than Shwe. He is said to be superstitious and to consult with astrologers, but otherwise has a public image that is taciturn in the extreme. No. 2 is Deputy Senior Gen. Maung Aye, 69, whose reputation is, if anything, more ruthless than Than Shwe’s, probably because he has more field combat experience from fighting ethnic rebels. Soldiers in the 400,000-strong military live secluded from civilian life in isolated barracks; their families are provided with housing as well.
How has Shwe's government kept power?
Than Shwe’s government has opened up the country to foreign investment. Myanmar is rich in natural resources and has survived by cultivating investment in its potentially vast oil and gas reserves. Neighboring China and India curry favor with the junta because of Myanmar’s strategic location and its oil and natural gas resources. China is the regime’s main ally, supplying the most aid and diplomatic muscle at international forums.
Who are the monks leading the protests?
The Buddhist clergy historically has been politically influential in Myanmar, nearly 90 percent of which is Buddhist. The 400,000 to 500,000 Buddhist monks have wielded considerable spiritual and political clout among the citizens for centuries. The government has tried to win the support of senior clergy, with mixed success at best. The monks have been called Myanmar’s “saffron army.”
Who is Aung San Suu Kyi?
Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, is the leader of Myanmar’s most prominent opposition group, the National League for Democracy, and the recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. She has spent more than 11 of the past 18 years under some form of arrest under the country’s military regime. Her followers and other pro-democracy activists in the country are routinely harassed and imprisoned.
Is the country called Myanmar or Burma?
Both. The military regime changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989 after suppressing a popular uprising. The United Nations, France and Japan all accept the name Myanmar. But others, including Britain — the country’s former colonial ruler — and the United States, continue to use the name Burma under the rationale that the ruling junta has no democratic mandate. News organizations also differ: The British Broadcasting Corp. uses Burma, but Reuters, The Associated Press and msnbc.com use Myanmar.
To which branch of Buddhism do the monks adhere?
The Buddhists of Myanmar observe the Theravada school, which is typically found in south and southeast Asia. The Theravada school focuses on personal liberation from craving and suffering.
Where and how big is Myanmar?
Myanmar is located in Southeast Asia, bordering the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh and India border Myanmar to the west, China to the northeast, and Laos and Thailand to the east. It is around 421,000 square miles, or slightly smaller than the state of Texas. Nearly 50 million people live in the country.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20993584/
May 14, 2008
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Aid at the Point of a Gun
By ROBERT D. KAPLAN
Mae Sot, Thailand
MORE than 60,000 people may have died as a result of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, and at least 1.5 million are homeless or otherwise in desperate need of assistance. The Burmese military junta, one of the most morally repulsive in the world, has allowed in only a trickle of aid supplies. The handful of United States Air Force C-130 flights from Utapao Air Base here in Thailand is little more than symbolic, given the extent of the need.
France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, has spoken of the possibility of an armed humanitarian intervention, and there is an increasing degree of chatter about the possibility of an American-led invasion of the Irrawaddy River Delta.
As it happens, American armed forces are now gathered in large numbers in Thailand for the annual multinational military exercise known as Cobra Gold. This means that Navy warships could pass from the Gulf of Thailand through the Strait of Malacca and north up the Bay of Bengal to the Irrawaddy Delta. It was a similar circumstance that had allowed for Navy intervention after the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.
Because oceans are vast and even warships travel comparatively slowly, one should not underestimate the advantage that fate has once again handed us. For example, a carrier strike group, or even a smaller Marine-dominated expeditionary strike group headed by an amphibious ship, could get close to shore and ferry troops and supplies to the most devastated areas on land.
The magic of this is that an enormous amount of assistance can be provided while maintaining a small footprint on shore, greatly reducing the chances of a clash with the Burmese armed forces while nevertheless dealing a hard political blow to the junta. Concomitantly, drops can be made from directly overhead by the Air Force without the need to militarily occupy any Burmese airports.
In other words, this is militarily doable. The challenge is the politics, both internationally and inside Myanmar. Because one can never assume an operation will go smoothly, it is vital that the United States carry out such a mission only as part of a coalition including France, Australia and other Western powers. Of course, the approval of the United Nations Security Council would be best, but China — the junta’s best friend — would likely veto it.
And yet China — along with India, Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Singapore — has been put in a very uncomfortable diplomatic situation. China and India are invested in port enlargement and energy deals with Myanmar. Thailand’s democratic government has moved closer to the junta for the sake of logging and other business ventures. Singapore, a city-state that must get along with everybody in the region, is suspected of acting as a banker for the Burmese generals. All these countries quietly resent the ineffectual moral absolutes with which the United States, a half a world away, approaches Myanmar. Nonetheless, the disaster represents an opportunity for Washington. By just threatening intervention, the United States puts pressure on Beijing, New Delhi and Bangkok to, in turn, pressure the Burmese generals to open their country to a full-fledged foreign relief effort. We could do a lot of good merely by holding out the possibility of an invasion.
The other challenge we face lies within Myanmar. Because a humanitarian invasion could ultimately lead to the regime’s collapse, we would have to accept significant responsibility for the aftermath. And just as the collapse of the Berlin Wall was not supposed to lead to ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, and the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein was not supposed to lead to civil war, the fall of the junta would not be meant to lead to the collapse of the Burmese state. But it might.
About a third of Myanmar’s 47 million people are ethnic minorities, who have a troubled historical relationship with the dominant group, the Burmans. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the heroine of the democracy movement, is an ethnic Burman just like the generals, and her supporters are largely focused on the Burman homeland. Meanwhile, the Chins, Kachins, Karennis, Karens, Shans and other hill tribes have been fighting against the government. The real issue in Myanmar, should the regime fall, would be less about forging democracy than a compromise between the Burmans and the other ethnic groups.
Of course, Myanmar is not the Balkans or Iraq, where ethnic and sectarian rivalries were smothered under a carapace of authoritarianism, only to erupt later on. Myanmar has suffered insurgencies for 60 years now, and may be ripe for a compromise under a civilian government. But neither can we be naïve. Just because Myanmar is not Yugoslavia doesn’t mean it isn’t like Russia; it is a mini-empire ruled by the ethnic-Burman military that could crumble into its constituent mountainous parts, especially as the democracy advocates have demonstrated little ability to run a country. Here in Mae Sot, a center for non-Burman ethnic dissident groups, complaints over the disorganization of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement are rife.
It seems like a simple moral decision: help the survivors of the cyclone. But liberating Iraq from an Arab Stalin also seemed simple and moral. (And it might have been, had we planned for the aftermath.) Sending in marines and sailors is the easy part; but make no mistake, the very act of our invasion could land us with the responsibility for fixing Burma afterward.
Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/opinion/14kaplan.html
