Bush renews sanctions on Myanmar, says no effect on storm aid

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush on Saturday extended for another year economic sanctions on Myanmar's military junta, but stressed the move did not affect aid bound for the cyclone-ravaged nation.

Bush said he ordered the extension of sanctions beyond the anniversary date of May 20, 2008, in part because the junta is still "engaging in large-scale repression of the democratic opposition in Burma," and other policies that pose "an unusual and extraordinary threat" to US national security.

"For this reason, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency with respect to Burma and maintain in force the sanctions against Burma to respond to this threat," he said in a statement, using Myanmar's former name.

"This action does not inhibit any efforts on the part of the United States to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Burma in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis."

Myanmar has faced world outrage and allegations of crimes against humanity by mostly refusing a massive foreign relief effort for the cyclone tragedy which the junta says has left 134,000 people dead or missing.

But US aid has begun to trickle into the isolated nation, where up to 2.5 million survivors are battling to stay alive two weeks after the cyclone hit.

Five US relief flights arrived in Myanmar on Wednesday, and four more landed Friday, with two of the shipments handed over directly to international relief groups for the first time, the State Department said.

More US flights were expected Saturday and Sunday.

The United States began imposing substantial trade, investment and diplomatic sanctions on Myanmar in 1997, including a ban on US investment in Myanmar, and enhanced its trade embargo in 2003.

It has tightened a freeze on the assets of the country's political and military leaders, and last October targeted 11 additional senior officials in the junta as well as seven state-controlled companies.

On May 1, just days before the cyclone, Bush slapped new sanctions on state-run Myanmar firms that he said help "prop up the junta."

Bush also charged that the regime was rigging a constitutional referendum, which has since taken place and earned the junta sweeping international denunciation as it was held in the aftermath of the cyclone.

On Thursday state media announced the military-backed constitution was approved by 92.4 percent of voters.

The country's opposition says the constitution, which the military hails as a step toward democratic elections in 2010, will only enshrine the power of the generals, who have ruled the country for nearly half a century.

Our moral imperative, ignored

By Frida Ghitis

May 13, 2008

There is nothing shocking about the actions of Myanmar's government. Anyone paying attention during the last 46 years of military rule there could have easily predicted that the malignant regime would again fail its people during a major natural disaster. What is truly shocking is what the rest of us are doing.

Now, in the second week after Cyclone Nargis swept ashore, wiping away perhaps 100,000 people, more than a million more Burmese face the imminent risk of hunger, disease and death. Nobody could have prevented a cyclone from hitting Myanmar (although much could have been done to lessen the impact with even minimal help from the government). The slow-motion catastrophe building now, however, is preventable, if only the generals will stand back and let the help come in.

But what if the military junta, which has already terrorized its people, ransacked the country's resources, and destroyed its economy, persists? What if the junta continues to keep the desperately needed water purification systems and food and medical care beyond the reach of the people? What then are we to do? Can we simply wash our hands? Are we morally absolved if we say, "We told them; we complained; we insisted, but they refused?" Is that enough?

All the loud and eloquent expression of outrage may soothe our guilt, but it does nothing to help the people of Myanmar. It should not.

The one statement we should heed today is the maxim attributed to Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

The sight of one or even several American planes loaded with supplies, or a few UN cargo flights arriving in Myanmar, may tempt us to deceive ourselves into thinking the problem is being addressed. The aid arriving in the Irrawaddy River delta amounts to a cupful of water in a vast ocean of need. It is designed only to ease the pressure on the generals, not on their victims.

How long will we wait for real action?

The legal framework for intervention is in place. Three years ago, the UN's General Assembly approved a document endorsing the concept of "responsibility to protect." The community of nations made a commitment to uphold the principle that governments have a responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity. And, that if a government failed in this responsibility, the duty to protect fell to the international community.

History has taught us not to expect Myanmar's toxic regime to uphold any such duty. But now, it is the international community that is guilty of dereliction of duty. If preventing emergency aid from reaching the needy is not a crime against humanity, then what is it?

The legal problem, as usual, lies in the UN Security Council, where China—Myanmar's reliable ally—along with Russia, would block any attempt to intervene by force. Pressuring the generals now seems fairly pointless. There is little time left for diplomatic niceties. The pressure now must fall on China and Russia to support a resolution calling for intervention.

Clearly, bringing aid at the point of a gun is no easy task. Aid workers don't relish working with military forces. But the incompetent and cowardly Burmese generals, the ones afraid to let their people even interact with outsiders, will wilt under the threat of international intervention, especially if Beijing makes it clear to them that they have no choice.

China and Russia must understand that they have a key role to play, and that they are now standing, in Burke's equation, on the side of evil.

Chances are that the moment the world takes up its moral responsibility, Myanmar's generals will stand back. But what if they don't? As human beings, we face a moral imperative: Are we going to stand by and allow the deaths of tens of thousands, of hundreds of thousands of children, women, men, fishermen, farmers, mothers, fathers?

Will we really sit back and wait for the body count? It is that prospect, not the inaction of the generals, that should shock all of us into action.

Frida Ghitis is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television."

Why Myanmar's junta steals foreign aid

By Brian McCartan

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Myanmar's generals may have more than self-promoting propaganda in mind by commandeering aid provided by international donors and insisting that the military deliver it without the assistance and expertise of foreign disaster relief personnel. The junta's control of aid and food stocks may rather be a hedge to remain in power.

The junta's insistence on holding a constitutional referendum at the preset date on Saturday, despite the widespread destruction caused by Cyclone Nargis, demonstrated clearly its determination to hold onto power at all costs. The regime only postponed the election in 47 townships affected by the cyclone in Yangon and Irrawaddy Divisions.

The referendum was labeled a sham by rights groups, Myanmar's political opposition and several foreign governments. The seemingly overwhelming "Yes" vote the constitution received was widely predicted after months of government intimidation. Fears of vote rigging were largely borne out by widespread reports from opposition political and media organizations.

Yet the generals apparently have a different agenda in their handling and distribution of international aid, which has been widely criticized for not allowing foreign aid workers to assist with distribution. While the first priority was clearly solidifying their rule through the referendum, they are also haunted by an almost pathological fear of a split inside their own ranks. During the popular demonstrations in September last year there were numerous reports of dissent within the rank and file, especially when it came to shooting monks who were in the forefront of the demonstrations.

The generals will likely have come to the same conclusions as many outside observers: their rice bowl has been badly damaged in the Irrawaddy Delta region and will likely not recover quickly. This is going to put a severe strain on existing rice stocks at a time the purchase of foreign rice has become increasingly expensive due to surging global commodity prices.

From the junta's perspective, the group that needs to be fed first is the 400,000 strong military, rather than the desperate civilian survivors of the crisis. With their respective family members, the military's associated numbers could be as high as 2 million, according to one Western military source. To the generals, the people now gathering in makeshift camps can be controlled, but only if the military remains united. An army without food or with starving families, especially in an army where most of the soldiers were forcibly recruited, is much more likely to revolt.

Lack of food is a perennial problem in Myanmar's army. In a report released on May 9 by Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), based on interviews with army deserters, the group said, "Threats, physical abuse and under nourishment are rife in the [Myanmar] army." While the soldiers interviewed by KHRG were serving at the frontline were food is often scarce, foreign residents in Myanmar have also commented on the malnourished look of soldiers in urban areas like Yangon and Mandalay.

In the 1990s, orders were issued to the army to be self-sufficient and live off the land. According to numerous reports by human rights groups like KHRG, Human Rights Foundation of Monland, Shan Human Rights Foundation and international groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, this policy has resulted in looting, extortion, forced labor and the forced confiscation of land for military farms.

These abuses have been noted in particular in the insurgency-plagued border areas, as well as in the relatively more peaceful central areas of the country - including the Irrawaddy Delta. These methods have kept the soldiers fed, at least at a basic subsistence level. Falling morale, however, is a problem in the military and the leaked documents of several high-level military meetings noted rising desertion levels and discontent in the ranks before the cyclone hit.

Some of this, according to deserters, is due to insufficient rations for themselves and their families. While a pressing problem, it had not become so severe that whole units were deserting or revolting. Now, with severe food shortages looming through the damage wrought by Cyclone Nargis, if soldiers are not given priority in aid distribution and are unable to feed themselves, the possibility of mutiny rises.

Death to the military
Cyclone Nargis did not only kill civilians, destroy homes and wipe out crops; it also took its toll on the military. The navy was particularly hard hit by the cyclone and the ensuing tidal wave. According to a senior opposition military officer, many navy ships were sunk and several hundred sailors were killed in the storm. The naval station on Hainggyi Island, the headquarters of the Pamawaddy Regional Command, was particularly hard hit. The Irrawaddy magazine, citing Myanmar naval sources, reported that up to 25 vessels were destroyed and 280 officers and sailors had gone missing.

The navy was not the only service to suffer. The Irrawaddy Delta is the operational area of the Southwest Regional Command, headquartered at Bathein. The command comprises 13 battalions spread out in camps throughout the region, including Pyapon and Mawlamyinegyun, both areas hard hit by the cyclone. The Southwest Command is also a politically important post.

Previous commanders of the post include Senior General Saw Maung, leader of the 1988 palace coup that installed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), which was renamed the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in 1997, as well as current junta leader Senior General Than Shwe and General Thura Shwe Mann, the current number three in the SPDC, joint commander-in-chief of the military and widely tipped to be a possible successor to Than Shwe.

From 1949 to the early 1970s, the Irrawaddy Delta was a battleground between the army and insurgents of the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Burmese Communist Party. Although both groups were pushed out of the area in the early 1970s, the army remained. In 1991, during what was called the "Bogalay Crisis", the KNU sent fighters and arms to the delta for an abortive insurrection. Although quickly crushed, the army expanded its presence through various camps situated in the region.

According to military opposition sources and residents, it can be safely assumed that many of these camps would also have been wiped out by the recent storm. Military bases and camps of the Yangon and Western Commands, responsible for Yangon Division and Arakan State respectively, would also likely have been affected.

No estimates of military casualties are available, but the toll on the soldiers could be on a par with civilian casualties in the area. Many soldiers and their family members in the Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon would likely have lost family members, or currently are struggling to get food and other necessities.

For the generals, this is where the importance of international aid comes in. With rice crops and storage facilities destroyed, bases wiped out, already discontented soldiers running out of food and with many of their family members dead, injured or unable to feed or fend for themselves, the military leadership needs to move quickly to preserve their hold over the rank and file and thus their hold on political power.

Several witnesses claim that aid supplies given by the generals, with certain military leaders' names painted on the packages, are only a propaganda exercise. They say that once the video cameras are turned off, the soldiers pack up the remaining undistributed aid and take it away. In one state-television broadcast, labels with the names of army generals were shown pasted over aid packages clearly saying "Aid from the Kingdom of Thailand".

The World Food Program temporarily halted aid flights on Friday after the military seized two food shipments, but resumed them the next day saying the scale of the humanitarian crisis necessitated sending the aid even if they could not control its distribution. More aid is now arriving in Myanmar, but relief officials say it is only a trickle and much more will be needed to avoid a wider humanitarian disaster.

Official government statistics now stand at 28,458 dead and 33,416 people missing. According to figures presented by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, based on their own assessments, an estimated 1,215,885 to 1,919,485 people have been adversely affected by the cyclone. They also estimate there are anywhere between 63,290 to 101,682 dead and 220,000 missing.

Yet the junta continues to hamper aid efforts by denying visas to humanitarian relief specialists, many of whom are now stranded in neighboring Bangkok. The military regime has consistently said it wants the relief supplies, but not the aid workers. It especially does not want aid workers who may control the distribution of relief supplies, precisely because that would keep the military from monopolizing the dispersal of the aid and prevent it from channeling it to its own members.

These numbers will likely rise as fuller assessments are made and many survivors succumb to disease, deprivation and starvation. Of particular concern to relief agencies is the threat of diseases such as cholera, malaria, typhus and dysentery brought on by the lack of proper shelter and sanitation and with drinking water contaminated by the dead.

Residents of Yangon and the Irrawaddy Delta say that the local population is increasingly outraged by the junta's lack of assistance and its hoarding of aid. To the junta's top generals, far away in their bunkers in their secluded new capital at Naypyidaw, the aid distribution policy is apparently political survival at all costs. But as it becomes more apparent to the wider suffering population that the junta is only looking after its own that policy could stoke more unrest than it avoids.

Brian McCartan is a freelance journalist based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He can be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.

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US airlifts aid to Myanmar, UN urges junta to cooperate

US soldiers load relief supplies into a C-130 aircraft for cyclone victims in Myanmar at the Royal Thai Navy Air Base in Utapao. The United States has delivered its first aid flight to Myanmar, but the UN warned that bottlenecks meant relief supplies were not reaching most of the 1.5 million survivors of a massive cyclone.


YANGON, Myanmar - The United States delivered its first relief supplies to Myanmar on Monday, as the U.N. urged the reclusive nation to open its doors to foreign experts who can help up to 2 million cyclone victims facing disease and starvation.

The military C-130 cargo plane, packed with 28,000 pounds of supplies, flew out of the Thai air force base of Utapao and landed in Yangon, capping prolonged negotiations to persuade Myanmar's military government to accept U.S. help.

Several Myanmar Cabinet ministers, military officers and the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, Shari Villarosa, greeted the plane.

Government spokesman Ye Htut said the aid, which was transferred to Myanmar army trucks, would be ferried by air force helicopters to the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta later Monday. Two more U.S. air shipments were scheduled to land Tuesday.

The official death toll from the May 3 Cyclone Nargis is 28,458 with another 33,416 still missing. But the U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Catherine Bragg and others have said the death toll could reach 100,000 or higher.

Though international assistance has started trickling in, the authoritarian government has barred most foreign experts who are experienced in managing humanitarian crises.

Richard Horsey, a spokesman for U.N. humanitarian operations, in Bangkok, Thailand, said clean drinking water, shelter, medical support and food were sorely lacking.

"The authorities of the country need to open up to an international relief effort. There aren't enough boats, trucks, helicopters in the country to run the relief effort of the scale we need," he said. "It's urgent that the authorities do open themselves up."

The junta has made a huge concession in letting the U.S. — the fiercest critic of its human rights record — bring in relief.

The U.S. plane carried mosquito nets, blankets and water in an operation dubbed "Joint Task Force Caring Response."

Also on the plane was Adm. Timothy J. Keating, the commander of the U.S. military in the Pacific, who will try to personally negotiate with the junta for a larger U.S. role in providing relief.

U.S. Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Douglas Powell said there are 11,000 service members and four ships in the region for an annual military exercise, Cobra Gold, that could be harnessed to help the mercy mission.

Three U.S. Navy ships in the Bay of Bengal were sailing closer to Myanmar on Monday, ready to aid cyclone victims if they are given permission, Vice Adm. Doug Crowder told reporters in Jakarta, Indonesia.

In Irrawaddy delta, people were surviving in miserable conditions — hundreds cramped in monasteries with little access to food. Others camped in the open, drinking dirty water contaminated by human feces or dead bodies and animal carcasses.

"The lives of thousands of cyclone survivors are at extreme risk," aid group World Vision said. "Displaced people are living in appalling conditions in makeshift shelters and camps where overcrowding and unsanitary conditions are prevalent."

Children — many of them orphans — are suffering from fever, diarrhea and respiratory infections, it said.

Heavy rains were forecast this week, which would further hinder aid delivery, even though it could be the only source of drinking water.

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej sent a letter to his Myanmar counterpart Monday, urging the junta to issue more visas. But the junta replied that visas for foreigners would be considered on a case-by-case basis, Thai government spokesman Wichianchote Sukchotrate said.

Samak's letter was carried by his personal envoy, Lt. Gen. Niphat Thonglek, who traveled to Myanmar on the U.S. plane, Wichianchote said. He said Myanmar informed Niphat that it will open the Thilawa port in Yangon to receive international relief supplies.

Still, the reclusive junta insists it will handle the aid distribution itself, through its feared military, which has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1962.

Many people have complained that they are getting rotting rice and that soldiers are keeping the best food for themselves.

"The government is very controlling," said U Patanyale, the abbot of a monastery in Kyi Bui Khaw village.

"Those who want to give directly to the victims get into trouble. They have to give to the government or do it secretly. They follow international aid trucks everywhere. They don't want others to take credit. That's the Myanmar government," he said.

Myanmar food aid lost when boat sinks

Monday, May 12, 2008 3:07 AM

A statue of Buddha reflects Cyclone Nargis' damage to a temple on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar. State television said yesterday the death toll had risen by about 5,000, to 28,458, and 33,416 others are missing.

YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar's monumental task of feeding and sheltering 1.5 million cyclone survivors suffered another blow yesterday when a boat laden with relief supplies -- one of the first international shipments -- sank on its way to the disaster zone.

Meanwhile, the death toll jumped to more than 28,000, and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned that "malign neglect" by the isolated nation's military rulers was creating a "humanitarian catastrophe of genuinely epic proportions."

The junta has been sharply criticized for its handling of the May 3 disaster, from failing to provide adequate warnings about the pending storm to responding slowly to offers of help.

Although international assistance has started trickling in, the few foreign relief workers who have been allowed into Myanmar have been restricted to the largest city, Yangon. Only a handful have succeeded in getting past checkpoints into the worst-affected areas.

The United States finally got the go-ahead to send a C-130 cargo plane packed with supplies to Yangon today, with two more air shipments scheduled to land Tuesday.

Myanmar's military rulers are deeply suspicious of Washington, which has long been one of the junta's biggest critics. The U.S. has pointed to human-rights abuses and the junta's failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.

Highlighting the many challenges ahead, however, a Red Cross boat carrying rice, drinking water and other goods for more than 1,000 people sank yesterday near hard-hit Bogalay town. All four aid workers on board were safe.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies could not say how much of the cargo was lost, but it said the food was contaminated by river water.

"Apart from the delay in getting aid to people, we may now have to re-evaluate how we transport that aid," said Michael Annear, the agency's disaster manager in Yangon.

Other aid was increasingly getting through, the group said, but on "nowhere near the scale required."

Heavy showers were forecast for this week, complicating delivery of aid that is still barely reaching victims in the Irrawaddy Delta, which was pounded by 120-mph winds and 12-foot- storm surges.

In hard-hit Labutta, hundreds of survivors crowded the floor of a monastery's open-air hall amid the wails of hungry children. Many people tried to sleep sitting up because of lack of space.

Pain Na Kon, a tiny nearby village of just 300, was obliterated. The only 12 known survivors huddled in a tent set up in a rice field, sharing a small portion of biscuits and watery soup handed out at a local monastery.

"We don't know when they will also run out of food," said U Nyo, casting glances at his 6-year-old niece, Mien Mien, who lost both her parents in the cyclone and sat outside in the dark. U Nyo called out to her gently, but Mien Mien stared into the darkness. Overcome with emotion, U Nyo walked, teary-eyed, over to the girl and sat beside her in silence.

Myanmar's state television said yesterday the death toll from Cyclone Nargis had risen by about 5,000, to 28,458 -- with another 33,416 missing. Some experts said the toll could reach 15 times that figure if people do not get clean water and sanitation soon.

"A natural disaster is turning into a humanitarian catastrophe of genuinely epic proportions in significant part because of the malign neglect of the regime," said Miliband, the British foreign secretary.

"I would be amazed if there hadn't been about 100,000 who had died already ... what's more, hundreds of thousands more are at risk," he told British Broadcasting Corp. television.

Aid was piling up in foreign countries, awaiting approval from the junta.

The country's main airport, in Yangon, should be accepting at least one flight every hour but is incapable of handling more than five a day, said PLAN, a London-based children's aid group.

"Logistically, the situation looks bleak," the group said in a statement. "In short, they have one congested airport, ill-equipped to deal with the influx of cargo, no port, restricted fuel and no trucks."

Aid group World Vision said it has requested visas for 20 people but received approval for only two. The U.N. World Food Program had one approved out of the 16 it requested.

Still, the U.N. was making some progress in aid delivery. The junta released 38 tons of high-energy biscuits to the World Food Program that were confiscated Friday, and several other shipments were on their way.

A senior British official accused the junta of "malign neglect." The first U.S. aid flight is to land today.

100,000 and still counting; dying on Burma junta's clock

By May Ng

Long before the catastrophic cyclone smashed into Burma and brought down the already feeble nation to its knees, the core of the military organization has suffered a serious blow last September. During the monks' uprising, a Burmese diplomat privately revealed his sympathy for the monks uprising, and his worries about the affect of western sanctions on his family. He did not approve of the killing of the monks and he was unhappy to be identified with the generals who had ordered the killing.

Here lays the crucial reason why the hardliner-generals are furiously pushing through tomorrow's constitutional referendum. The generals are not worrying about what the world or the political oppositions may think. The generals with monks' blood on their hands are now desperately trying to protect themselves from the rest of the army who were not involved in killing of the monks. Constitutional referendum is their last ditch attempt to protect themselves from future prosecution and to ensure their own safety from those who did not commit the crimes.

However, in spite of existence of such resentment the army will remain intact, for it is a close-knit organization where members need each other for over all survival. But the generals with bad conscience want to put constitutional vote, more than the catastrophic Cyclone Nargis, safely behind.

To ensure victory at the voting booth the junta has been trying to beat their opponents into submission. But the fate of the military junta no longer rests with the oppositions, international critics, or even the constitutional referendum. After the deadly Cyclone Nargis, the future of the generals and the future of Burma are now hanging by a thread. No one, but the generals in Naypyidaw is being fooled into believing that they are still in complete control of the storm ravaged country.

The credibility of the military as a capable and responsible government is diminishing by the minute, as storm victims are continuing to die in the second phase of Cyclone Nargis. Unlike last September or China's crackdown in Tibet; one hundred thousand rotting corpses in Irrawaddy delta are hard even for the junta to completely cover up. And it is provoking bitter hatred from all over Burma and the world, against the inhumane government.

A study of the 2004 tsunami stresses the responsibility and accountability of the native and foreign humanitarian actors. As the Burmese junta cannot be trusted to act responsibly or with transparent accountability, most reliable aid donors will decline to hand over the aid supplies and cash donations directly to the military. Instead, lessons from the past tsunami recommend involvement of aid recipients in delivering and making decisions by putting aid workers in direct contact with the receivers.

The "Joint evaluation of the international response to the Indian Ocean tsunami", published on January 2007, revealed that no community or nation has a full set of resources to meet all possible catastrophic emergencies from within their own capacities. Humanitarian emergencies in general are events that overwhelm the immediate local capacity and demand external help. The report stressed that communities may need to call for assistance from the provincial capacities; provinces from national capacities; and nations from international capacities.

Unlike the present situation in Burma, in the aftermath of 2004 tsunami, native volunteers in India, Thailand, and Indonesia, and government official teams with national military, played a key role in the early rescue and relief work.

Similar to the Irrawaddy Delta area, the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia killed many local officials; and the military, especially naval units were destroyed, along with government offices and transport infrastructure; and the local people, before the government responded to the storm first. Mobile phone systems and telephone cables were destroyed, making communication impossible for local officials in Aceh, to get a view of the true scale of the problem and coordinate relief efforts at the beginning.

Main roads as well as key bridges, and main seaports along the coasts of Sri Lanka and Aceh were destroyed. The main airport at Aceh was unusable from flooding. It was up to 10 days, before the most isolated groups got outside help from lack of access, even after the international militaries coordinated successfully with national military capacities, during 2004 tsunami.

The arrival of international actors with huge resources brought much-needed help. International aid both replaced some local resources which the early relief effort had exhausted, and provided new resources which were either not available locally or available in very limited quantities, according to the 2004 tsunami report.

The 2004 tsunami evaluation defined the 'capacity' as multi-faceted, and an effective response calls for interventions, from a wide range of actors each of which may bring particular capacities. While the affected population can bring their knowledge of the context to the response; international agencies can bring their specialist medical or relief skills; the international military can bring their logistics capacity.

Victor D. Cha, Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council in Washington wrote that, within 48 hours of the 2004 tsunami, the United States had enlisted Australia, India, and Japan, and organized the largest emergency relief mission in modern history. It sent over 16,000 U.S. military personnel, two dozen ships, and 100 aircraft as part of its immediate $346 million relief package, followed by an additional U.S. commitment of $600 million. This rapid response gave UN agencies both the time and the infrastructure they needed to mobilize and get on the ground.

No other nation, and no international organization, could have coordinated such a response. In comparison Beijing's response to the tsunami which killed 280,000 people and displaced over 1.8 million was slow, feeble, and parochial.

According to John Cosgrave, 'capacity' refers not only to resources, skills and knowledge but also to the ability to influence and control policies and actions. During 2004 tsunami similar to the Cyclone Nargis, the huge needs for relief and recovery all clearly exceeded local capacity to provide them.

Dr. Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins who has worked extensively in Burma viewed the country as particularly ill equipped to deal with a public health catastrophe.

The United Nations World Food Program spokesman, Paul Risley also commented that Myanmar's refusal to grant visas to foreign aid teams is "unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts". Many in the worst-hit delta areas have no access to food, drinking water, or medical care and the risk for disease outbreak is increasing.

Most of the delta has been flooded with salt water and CNN Correspondent Dan Rivers reported that the low-lying delta region, home to six million people is receiving no help from anyone, including government soldiers or aid agencies.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged the junta to focus on mobilizing all available resources and capacity for the emergency response efforts, instead of tomorrow's referendum.

The UN has just reported that, the Burmese government seized tons of aid material flown in, to help victims of Cyclone Nargis; and the WFP had no choice but to halt aid until the matter was resolved.

As Burmese junta continues to deny several of the world disaster assessment experts' entry; a former under secretary for humanitarian affairs of the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami lamented that, "We have now lost five or six days because of the government's intransigence," even though planes loads of supplies, and military forces from 12 countries were ready to go in to help the disaster victims in Burma.

The cry to force humanitarian aid into Burma will get louder by the hour as the military government carts away supplies, cash, and emergency aid without allowing the entry of aid workers. Death toll, in the mean time, continues to climb above the estimated 100,000--on Burma junta's clock.

May Ng is from the Southern Shan State and NY regional director of Justice for Human Rights in Burma.

The Gates Foundation has donated US$3 million for emergency relief efforts

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates speaks with The Associated Press Friday May 9, 2008, in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Gates Foundation has donated US$3 million for emergency relief efforts in Myanmar and will provide software to help reunite family members separated in the cyclone, Gates said Friday.

First UN relief flight lands in Myanmar after 2 day delay

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's isolationist regime allowed the first plane of a major international airlift to land Thursday with aid for cyclone survivors, a U.N. official said, amid fears that lack of safe food and drinking water could push the death toll above 100,000.

But the junta was not allowing U.S. military planes to fly in critical relief goods and continued to stall on visas for U.N. teams urgently seeking entry to ensure aid is delivered to the victims.

A U.N. official said one airplane from Italy arrived in Yangon while three more would land later Thursday. The official did not wish to be named because she was not authorized to speak to the media.

Four planes loaded with high-energy biscuits, medicine and other supplies have waited for the last two days while frustrated U.N. officials negotiated with the military regime to allow the material into the Southeast Asian nation.

The U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Eric John told reporters that U.S. and Thai authorities earlier believe they had permission from Myanmar to land U.S. military C-130s. But Myanmar officials later made it clear that this was not the case.

John said it was not clear if they had reversed an earlier decision or if there was a misunderstanding.

Thailand's Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej offered to negotiate on Washington's behalf to persuade the junta to accept U.S. aid.

Myanmar's state media said Cyclone Nargis killed at least 22,980 people and left 42,119 missing, mostly in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta. But a top U.S. diplomat said Wednesday the toll could exceed 100,000.

Entire villages in the delta were still submerged from the storm, and bloated corpses could be seen stuck in the mangroves. Some survivors stripped clothes off the dead. People wailed as they described the horror of the torrent swept ashore by the cyclone.

"I don't know what happened to my wife and young children," said Phan Maung, 55, who held onto a coconut tree until the water level dropped. By then his family was gone.

The World Health Organization has received reports of malaria outbreaks in the worst-affected area, and fears of waterborne illnesses surfacing due to dirty water and poor sanitation also remained a concern, said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, deputy director of WHO's Southeast Asia office in New Delhi.

"Safe water, sanitation, safe food. These are things that we feel are priorities at the moment," she said.

Myanmar's generals, traditionally paranoid about foreign influence, issued an appeal for international assistance after the storm struck Saturday. They have since dragged their feet on issuing visas to relief workers even as survivors faced hunger, disease and flooding.

Even near Yangon, the country's largest city, stricken villagers complained that they had received no government assistance and were relying on Buddhist monasteries, which have been helping the public cope with the disaster.

"The government is not helping us. No aid is coming. There is no money, no rice," said Mu Sanda, one of some 50 people huddled in a monastery dining room converted into an evacuation center in Kyauktan, 15 miles southeast of Yangon.

Even China, Myanmar's closest ally, urged the military junta to work with the international community. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said China would give $4.3 million in aid in addition to an initial pledge of $1 million.

A U.N. spokesman in Bangkok, Richard Horsey, said between 30 and 40 visas requested by various U.N. agencies and private relief groups are pending with the Myanmar government.

"These are mostly people who have key experience in handling disasters of this scale, and so they can bring lessons from other similar disasters," he said. "The agencies are becoming frustrated."

The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said some donors were delaying aid for fear it would be siphoned off to the army.

WFP's regional director, Anthony Banbury, indicated the United Nations had similar concerns.

"We will not just bring our supplies to an airport, dump it and take off," he said. "This is one reason why there is a hold up now, because we are going to bring in not just supplies but a lot of capacity to go with them to make sure the supplies get to the people."

Myanmar's state television Thursday showed Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein distributing food packages to the sick and injured in the delta and soldiers dropping food over villages. The date of the distribution was not given.

Navy vessels from India and planes from Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Laos and Bangladesh had arrived in recent days with medicine, candles, instant noodles, raincoats and other relief supplies, it said.

Although most Yangon residents were preoccupied with trying to restore their lives, activists using the cover of an almost-total power outage have written fresh graffiti on overpasses.

The graffiti include "X" marks , a symbol for voting "no" in a referendum Saturday on a new military-backed constitution. Voting has been postponed until May 24 in Yangon, some outlying areas and parts of the delta heavily damaged by the storm.

Shari Villarosa, who heads the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because safe food and water were scarce and unsanitary conditions widespread.

U.N. officials estimated as many as 1 million people were left homeless in Myanmar, which also is known as Burma.

Among them were the villagers in the Kyauktan monastery who said they had nowhere else to seek shelter and lacked food, water and money to rebuild their homes and rehabilitate their ruined rice fields.

Others in Kyauktan sought refuge in a primary school adjacent to the monastery where desks in classrooms were pushed together for makeshift beds.

Monks said they were receiving donations from the public and wealthier shop owners and then distributing them among the victims.

In Yangon, the roof of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was blown off and she was living in the dark after the electricity connection to her dilapidated lakeside bungalow was snapped in the cyclone, a neighbor said.

The detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate was using candles at night since she had no generator in her home, where she is being held under house arrest, said the neighbor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

State radio said "unscrupulous elements" were spreading rumors of an impending earthquake, a second cyclone and looting in Yangon. Residents say some looting occurred at markets and stores in suburbs of Yangon earlier this week.

The warning about rumors appeared to be an attempt to calm the population as well as stop any gatherings that might turn into political agitation against widely detested military rule.



Summary

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U.S. mulls food drops to devastated Myanmar

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States is considering air-dropping aid to victims of the cyclone in Myanmar even without permission from the military government, a U.S. official said Thursday.

Ky Luu, director of the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, said dropping food and supplies by air to needy victims could be an option if the government continues to limit access of aid workers.

"Anything that might have a positive impact is being looked at and is being discussed," he told reporters. "Everything within the law is being considered at this point in time."

However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday told reporters he "couldn't imagine" the United States dropping aid by air with out permission from the Myanmar government.

On Thursday, nearly a week after Cyclone Nargis barreled into Myanmar, the country's secretive government began allowing more aid agencies into the country to respond to the dire needs of survivors. But aid workers from the United Nations and other organizations were still concerned supplies weren't getting into the country fast enough.

Relief agencies say authorities in Myanmar have been slow to issue visas to a small army of relief workers gathered in Thailand who are poised to fight a tide of hunger and disease.

"We have gotten valuable cooperation. The first steps have been taken," Bettina Luescher, from the World Food Programme, told CNN Thursday. "But it's taking too slow. It needs to go much quicker."

The United States has also been pushing for access, pledging $3.25 million and offering to send U.S. Navy ships to the region to help relief efforts. The U.S. military flew six helicopters to a Thai airbase in anticipation of gaining access to the south Asian country to provide aid, two senior military officials told CNN's Barbara Starr.

When pressed on whether food drops would be legal, Luu said a recent U.N. mandate calling for a "responsibility to protect" could pave the way for such action, but he wasn't entirely sure of the legal ramifications.

"Let's say we were only given permission to be able to drop off food, then ... that is something that we would do," he said.

But Luu, cautioned, air drops are not the most efficient way to get aid to those in need because there is no infrastructure on the ground to deliver it to the affected areas.

"You can bring in commodities but if they are not reaching the impacted areas, if they are not available in terms of warehouse space and logistics -- forklift capacity and trucks and helicopters to go and bring it out -- we may be inundated and create a logjam," he said

It would be best, he said, to have aid workers in the country.

Luu said victims of the cyclone are in desperate need of clean water and temporary shelter. He stressed the importance of getting the U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team into the country to determine how to best help aid efforts.

So far the Myanmar government have refused to provide visas for U.S. aid workers and for the DART team.

"The DART's presence helps us make informed decisions and helps us be able to get the resource out quicker," Luu said. "Without the DART on the ground or without other operational partners, it's very difficult at this point in time to tell you exactly what the conditions are on the ground; how many people are impacted; what are the needs."

Cyclone Aftermath

Living Flooded Areas by Township

The U.S. military put people and airplanes into position to work on any relief effort for cyclone

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military put people and airplanes into position to work on any relief effort for cyclone-hit Myanmar, as officials awaited word on whether the Asian nation would accept such American help.

An Air Force C-130 landed in neighboring Thailand and another was on the way, Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said Wednesday morning at the Pentagon.

"When they accept, or if they accept — and we know what supplies they need — those planes will be there to transport those," she said.

A rapid deployment unit designed to be the first people inserted into an operation already works out of Thailand and is at the ready as well. "This is just a positioning of the planes and people," Orton said.

Three U.S. officials said they understood it was possible the Myanmar government would only accept money from the United States and want to buy its own aid supplies — or that it would only accept U.S. assistance as part of the broader United Nations effort.

Navy and Marine Corps officials said they were in a holding position, awaiting word on whether they would be needed.

The Navy has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in any relief effort — the USS Essex, the USS Juneau and the USS Harper's Ferry.

The Essex is an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters aboard, including 19 capable of lifting cargo from ship to shore, as well as more than 1,500 Marines.

One official said that if there is a U.S. relief operation, the Essex group would likely leave some of its assets behind so the multinational exercise can still be held, while moving other equipment forward to help Myanmar.

Because it would take the Essex more than four days to get into position, another official said, the Navy is considering sending some of its helicopters ahead. The aircraft would be able to arrive in a matter of hours, and the Essex could follow, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because that effort was still in the planning stages.

The White House said Tuesday the U.S. will send more than $3 million to help victims of the devastating cyclone in Myanmar, up from an initial emergency contribution of $250,000.

The additional commitment of funds, announced by press secretary Dana Perino, came as Myanmar continued to resist entry for a U.S. disaster assessment team. The Bush administration said permission for such a team to enter the Southeast Asian nation and look at the damage would allow quicker and larger aid contributions.

In the meantime, the decision was made to funnel $3 million more to the disaster-stricken zone. Perino said the money would be allocated by a USAID disaster response team that is currently positioned in Thailand.

The Treasury Department moved to make it easier for relief agencies and religious organizations to provide assistance to cyclone victims by issuing a blanket license for them to receive financial contributions from United States. Under existing U.S. sanctions on Myanmar, such transactions normally require individual licenses.

A human corpse floats near an animal's body in a flooded field in Labutta

A human corpse floats near an animal's body in a flooded field in Labutta, a town in the Irrawaddy region. Experts warned of a looming health crisis in Myanmar, where millions of cyclone victims face outbreaks of disease as they struggle to survive without clean water, food or shelter.

In a drowning paradise, saving people from the sins of their leaders

May Ng Wednesday, 07 May 2008 20:52

May Ng is from the Southern Shan State of Burma and NY Regional Director of Justice for Human Rights in Burma.

Only a little over six months ago there seemed a real possibility that hope for a peaceful change in Burma was on the horizon. That ended in ugly scenes with attacks on Buddhist institutions and revered monks by the military junta of Burma.

Since then, the last thing people of Irrawaddy Delta, the heart of the saffron uprising, expected was one more deadly devastation. No government can stop or completely prevent the destructive power of storms such as Cyclone Nargis.

But the utter neglect by the heads of state in Burma is unparalleled in history--first to force citizens to leave the dangerous low lying areas,--and second to open doors for outside help once the devastation had occurred. The same military which is capable of keeping fifty million inhabitants under lock and key as seen during the Saffron Revolution could have undertaken some form of preventive action to
save at least part of the population. The scale of the devastation reflects the extent of the government's failure to take the welfare of its citizens seriously.

The regime which had killed thousands of young students in 1988, and many monks in 2007 seems to have touched another record with the number of unnecessary deaths from Cyclone Nargis. As of this moment it is quite possible that Burma has lost almost half as many people as the total numbers killed during the last Tsunami. And many more millions of people in a large area are left without shelter or food, and are in real danger of succumbing to hunger and diseases.

Neither the Western powers nor the Eastern neighbours seem to know how to engage the Burmese military into cooperating with disaster relief efforts with expediency. The unwillingness of the major powers to assert themselves by force to help Burma overcome the major humanitarian disaster at this critical moment is even more appalling. As the clock ticks away more people will simply succumb to the effect of killer cyclone after days of suffering.

Burmese people desperately need all the help they can get. So far the much heralded Asian's rise and its prosperous neighbours have done nothing for Burma, except to grab rich natural resources among themselves by befriending the rogue junta.

Those who are friendly with the generals should now assert their influence and bring the generals to their senses. The injured, sick, and homeless cyclone victims can no longer wait for the games military likes to play with international and domestic actors who are coming to Burma's aid. It is no time to dither. A concerted international effort is urgently needed. It is time to tell the generals to shelf their preposterous plan to crown themselves permanently in Burma with the electoral dictatorship, and instead proceed with saving the survivors of the biggest storm in Burma's history. The generals can score much higher politically by saving people's lives, not by killing or letting them die.

Myanmar cyclone death toll soars past 22,000: state radio

YANGON, Myanmar - The cyclone death toll soared above 22,000 on Tuesday and more than 41,000 others were missing as the international community prepared to rush in aid after the country's deadliest storm on record, state radio reported.

Up to 1 million people may be homeless after Cyclone Nargis, some villages have been almost totally eradicated and vast rice-growing areas are wiped out, the World Food Program said.

Some aid agencies reported their assessment teams had reached some areas of the largely isolated region but said getting in supplies and large numbers of aid workers would be difficult.

Images from state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads and roofless houses ringed by large sheets of water in the Irrawaddy River delta region, which is regarded as Myanmar's rice bowl.

"From the reports we are getting, entire villages have been flattened and the final death toll may be huge," Mac Pieczowski, who heads the International Organization for Migration office in Yangon, said in a statement.

Shari Villarosa, the top American diplomat in Yangon, told NBC's "Today" show that the cyclone had knocked huge trees in the country's largest city.

"And it blew down a significant portion of them, some of these are 6, 8, 10 stories tall — huge trees, 6 feet, 5 feet in diameter. So they came down on roofs," she said.

State radio also said that Saturday's vote on a military-backed draft constitution would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in the Irrawaddy delta, which took the brunt of the weekend storm. It indicated that the balloting would proceed in other areas as scheduled.

The decision drew swift criticism from dissidents and human rights groups who question the credibility of the vote and urged the junta to focus on disaster victims.

Myanmar's generals have hailed the referendum as an important step forward in their "roadmap to democracy." It offers the first chance for voters to cast ballots since 1990, and the probability is high they will approve the constitution — a legal framework the country has lacked for two decades.

But critics, including the United Nations, the United States and human rights groups, question whether it will lead to democracy.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Its government has been widely criticized for suppression of pro-democracy parties such as the one led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for almost 12 of the past 18 years.

At least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests in September led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.

Cyclone Devastates Myanmar, 10,000 Feared Dead

3,000 People Are Missing From Just One Town

Nearly 4,000 people were killed Saturday by a devastating cyclone that smashed into Myanmar and officials fear it toll could go as high as 10,000.

The death toll is likely to climb sharply because government officials say the storm hit with such force that 3,000 people from a single town cannot be found.

Foreign Minister Nyan Win told foreign diplomats during a briefing that the death toll could reach 10,000, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors.

It was already a dramatic increase in the toll, which had been set at 351.

"The confirmed number is 3,934 dead, 41 injured and 2,879 missing within the Yangon and Irrawaddy divisions," MRTV reported as aid agencies said hundreds of thousands of people were without shelter and drinking water.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country, formerly known as Burma, early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph.

In capital city Yangon, many roofs were ripped off even sturdy buildings, like hospitals and schools. The city's usually unreliable electricity grid was shut down for the city's 6.5 million people.

The situation in the countryside remained unclear because of poor communications and roads left impassable by the storm, but the damage to Yangon hinted at how severe things might be in the shantytowns that lie on the outskirts of the city.

The radio station broadcasting from the country's capital, Naypyitaw, said that 2,879 people are unaccounted for in the town of Bogalay, in the country's low-lying Irrawaddy River delta area where the storm wreaked the most havoc.

The Irrawaddy area is the country's rice bowl.

One resident in the Irrawaddy town of Laputta told the BBC that up to 80 percent of the town has been destroyed.

"Houses in the residential districts just remain as the skeleton structures. Out of town, 16 villages along the coast have been virtual wiped out," the resident reported.

"It's clear that we're dealing with a very serious situation. The full extent of the impact and needs will require an extensive on-the-ground assessment," said Richard Horsey, a spokesman in Bangkok, Thailand, for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"What is clear at this point is that there are several hundred thousands of people in dire need of shelter and clean drinking water," Horsey said.

Officials from Myanmar's military government met today with representatives of international aid agencies to discuss providing assistance.

Disaster tests Burma's junta

By Kate McGeown
Asia-Pacific Editor, BBC News
Until Saturday, a common view among Burmese people was that life could not get much worse.

The country had been sliding ever deeper into poverty, and after the anti-government protests in September were brutally quashed, the prospect of an end to military rule seemed ever more remote.

Even the junta's planned referendum on its long-awaited constitution, scheduled to take place on 10 May, did not sound promising - with accusations of vote-rigging and intimidation marring the government's claim that it would be a step towards democracy.

But no-one could not have predicted there would be yet another blow in store for the Burmese people - this time from the forces of nature.

According to the latest government estimates, up to 10,000 people may have died in Saturday's cyclone, which has devastated large swathes of the south, including the main city Rangoon.

Several hundred thousand people are thought to be in need of shelter and drinking water.

Whatever they think of their leaders right now, the people of Burma desperately need their help.

And for a government which is already under intense pressure to reform and justify its grip on power to the international community, coping with a disaster of this magnitude is a crucial test.

'Just standing around'

Initial indications show the military junta is not coping at all well.

The few civilians who have been able to get through to the outside world since the disaster talk of a slow, inadequate response.

"The USDA [the civilian arm of the military junta] have turned up but they're not really doing anything - they're just standing around," one woman told the BBC.

Former Swedish government minister Jens Orback, who was in Rangoon at the time, said there had been no help from the authorities "for the first 10 to 12 hours".

"There were no policemen and no military on the streets but people were privately out there with their hand-saws, chopping the trees," he said.

State-run television has shown footage of troops working to clear streets but in reality many areas have yet to receive any help from the military, according to Aung Zaw, the editor of Irrawaddy, a publication run by Burmese journalists in exile in Thailand.

"The soldiers are only helping people near the military facilities; downtown Rangoon is like a ghost town," he said.

International help

But now the scale of the disaster is more apparent - the authorities increased their estimate of the death toll from 350 to up to 10,000 on Monday - the government has finally admitted it cannot cope alone.

Late on Monday the United Nations confirmed that Burma had agreed to accept international assistance.

Several aid agencies, such as World Vision, Save the Children and the World Food Programme, are already being given access to affected areas and have plans to airlift large qualities of supplies into the country in the coming days.

The international community will be watching closely to see how many restrictions the government will place on this aid distribution.

Karen state in the east and Arakan state in the south-west, which borders Irrawaddy, have been closed to foreigners for years, amid reports of abject poverty and repression of ethnic minorities.

There will doubtless be intense international pressure to allow urgent supplies into these areas as soon as possible.

Postponing the vote?

The international spotlight was already on Burma, even before the cyclone.

In the wake of the crackdown on monks and other anti-government demonstrators in September, there has been a constant stream of calls by Western governments urging Burma to move towards democracy.

After 15 years of stalling, Senior General Than Shwe recently announced that a new draft constitution had been completed, and would be put to a referendum to pave the way for democratic elections in 2010.

This referendum is due on 10 May - less than a week away - and to many analysts' surprise, the government has shown no sign of postponing it because of the cyclone.

In fact, according to the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Monday, "the entire people of the country are eagerly looking forward" to the poll.

Aung Naing Oo, a Burma analyst based in Thailand, said the government probably wanted to go ahead with the referendum because a postponement would give the opposition more time to drum up support for its campaign for a "no" vote.

But Aung Zaw from Irrawaddy magazine believes that holding the poll as planned might prove a bad idea for the military rulers, due to the level of public anger at their handling of the cyclone disaster.

The truth is that, right now, people living in large swathes of southern Burma probably do not care much either way about the referendum.

While there is undoubtedly a desire for political change, as shown by the strength of the protests last September, there is currently a much more urgent need - that of basic survival.

Cyclone batters Myanmar's main city Yangon - 04 May 2008

Security Council urges inclusive and credible Myanmar referendum, elections

2 May 2008 – The Security Council today stressed the need for the upcoming referendum and elections in Myanmar to include the full participation of all political actors and respect for fundamental political freedoms.

In February authorities in the South-East Asian nation announced that a draft constitution will be put to voters in a national referendum in May, ahead of multi-party elections scheduled for 2010.

The Council underlined the need for the Government of Myanmar “to establish the conditions and create an atmosphere conducive to an inclusive and credible process,” in a statement read out by Ambassador John Sawers of the United Kingdom, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency for May.

“It further notes the commitment by the Government of Myanmar to ensure that the referendum process will be free and fair,” the statement added.

The Council also expressed its appreciation for the work of the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser, Ibrahim Gambari, who has visited the country three times since last summer’s crackdown by the authorities on peaceful protesters, and is spearheading UN efforts to promote democratization and national reconciliation in Myanmar.

Mr. Gambari recently stated that it is in Myanmar’s interest to ensure that its upcoming referendum and elections are as credible and inclusive as possible and to engage without delay in dialogue with the detained pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr. Sawers later told reporters that although today’s statement does not refer to Ms. Suu Kyi, it does reaffirm previous statements by the Council in which it mentions the need for Myanmar’s authorities to engage in a genuine dialogue with her and all concerned parties.

Briefing the press on the Council’s work for the month, he noted that the “centrepiece” of the UK presidency will be an open debate on post-conflict peacebuilding, to be chaired by Foreign Secretary David Miliband on 20 May.

“In the period immediately after peace agreement is achieved, there isn’t sufficient change in the lives of ordinary people, there’s not a re-establishment of security and far too many countries after conflict lapse back into conflict within five years of a peace agreement being reached,” he stated. “That’s partly because the international community does not have the capacity to quickly implement and follow through on peace agreements when they are reached.”

Mr. Sawers added that Council members will embark on 31 May for a 10-day visit to Africa, with scheduled stops in Kenya, Sudan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Côte d’Ivoire.

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Cyclone lashes Myanmar after missing Bangladesh

YANGON (AFP) - A severe cyclone was expected to hit Myanmar's main city Yangon later Friday after the storm missed neighbouring Bangladesh, meteorologists said.

Severe cyclone Nargis had already hit outlying coastal regions and was packing winds of 120 to 150 miles (192 to 240 kilometres) per hour, Tun Lwin, director general of the meteorological department in Yangon, told AFP.

The storm was centred about 210 kilometres west of Haing Gyi island at the mouth of the Ayeyawaddy (Irrawaddy) river, or about 430 kilometres southwest of Yangon.

"It started to hit Ayeyawaddy Division since this morning. It will hit Ayeyawaddy, Yangon and Bago Divisions later today. The tide could be increased by 10 to 12 feet (three to 3.5 metres)," he said.

Myanmar's state-run newspapers have run warnings about the impending storm.

Haing Gyi island could not be contacted for further information after it was hit.

The meteorological department said it was not yet known whether the storm had caused any damage or casualties.

In Bangladesh, fishing crews have been been told to stay close to the shore and not to venture into the Bay of Bengal, after fears it would slam into the southeast coast.

But government forecaster Ayesha Khatun said the disaster-prone country was likely to escape the impact of Nargis.

"It is not going to hit Bangladesh. It will hit Myanmar later today, although the southern tip of Bangladesh could be affected," she said.

Bangladesh is still picking up the pieces after last November's devastating cyclone Sidr which smashed into the southern coast, killing more than 3,000 people.

Half a million people perished in Bangladesh in a cyclone in 1970. Some 138,000 died in 1991 in a tidal wave caused by a cyclone.