If you are a Myanmarese citizen, having lived in the military-ruled country for decades you have legitimate reasons to deeply worry about the survivors of the deadly Cyclone Nargis that hit the country on May 2-3.
Despite the ``breakthrough'' of the May 23 discussion between dictator Than Shwe and the U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon concerning the critical and urgent relief efforts for the homeless, the sick and the dying, you still have good reasons to be skeptical about how that ``breakthrough'' is going to work in practice.
While the military regime in the country has successfully deflected criticism from the international community by halfheartedly, reluctantly and belatedly promising to open its doors to ``all foreign aid workers,'' life inside the reclusive country remains as gloomy as before, more than 30 days after the cyclone hit.
The visa process at Myanmar embassies abroad still takes several days for foreign aid workers, nearly two weeks after the crucial meeting between the country's strongman and the U.N. chief.
Even the handful of volunteers who have managed to enter the country have a hard time reaching the worst affected areas due to the junta's bureaucratic red tape, and its deliberate efforts to prevent them from learning the truth about the situation there.
While the international community appears to be more shocked and dismayed by the military generals' indifference to the sufferings of the victims and their inaction than by the powerful storm itself, the victims themselves are not so surprised to witness relief workers and volunteers being blocked, prevented, intimidated and driven away by its own government.
The traumatized citizens are painfully familiar with how badly its government has handled things during its iron-fisted rule for nearly half a century.
``The government announced the completion of relief effort 10 days after the cyclone ransacked the country. But 15 days since the destruction, we still witness countless numbers of stinking human corpses floating in the Irrawaddy river near Bokalay," said Lay Maung recounting his own experiences.
Lay Maung is a Yangon resident who has repeatedly visited the disaster areas including Bogalay, one of the worst-hit townships.
``In some areas corpses block the waterways, making it difficult for motorboat drivers to move freely. Though the villagers are trying to rid the river of dead bodies, the task is simply too big for them,'' said the young man who spent three days among the living and the dead in the areas, delivering aid to the victims.
``So how could the government announce that it has finished the relief effort while people are still dying? It's not the corpses but the government's announcement that makes me feel sick to my stomach.''
With the help of three local people, Lay Maung and his group, including a doctor, a nurse and two volunteers, managed to slip into Doke Gyi village in Bogalay township. They were stopped and questioned at four military checkpoints along the way.
Disguised as local people and setting up a temporary camp in the village, the group cautiously began its mission. During their three-day stay they treated an average of approximately 120 patients per day and helped two women give birth.
The village was the first among other nearby villages to receive outside help in the 15 days since the deadly cyclone. With 150 homes, the village used to have a population of approximately 1,000.
On the night of the disaster, most of the villagers who took shelter in one of the village's three barns survived, however, those who hid inside the village school were swept away by ferocious winds and a 12-foot tidal wave.
When the victims were given the rations the volunteer group had sneaked in, they said it was the first time in 15 days that they had seen salt. Since the disaster they had survived by eating plain unsalted porridge.
The government says that so far about 70,000 people have perished with more than 50,000 still missing since the catastrophe. But Lay Maung and his group have good reason to be skeptical about these official figures.
Villagers from Bogalay, Labutta and the surrounding areas admitted that in the past they refrained from reporting to the government the correct number of people living in each village due to rampant forced labor which the junta has been persistently using for decades since it came to power in 1962.
They say they usually register only half of the actual population number in order to spare themselves from collective forced labor. Therefore, when the government compiled statistics on the number of casualties and victims of the cyclone, the number was based on incorrect and outdated registry.
According to the villagers, for example, Neydalin village in Bogalay township had 200 homes with a population of about 1,500 before the cyclone totally destroyed the homes and killed all the residents.
But in the governments official record only 500 people were listed as dead or missing from the village. The authorities have used the same underestimated and incorrect statistics for other villages too.
This has prompted villagers to claim that the real number of people killed in the Irrawaddy delta might be twice or three times higher than that of the governments.
Amid the government's careless, incompetent and unsympathetic response to this massive loss of live, there are also reports of cyclone refugees being forcibly removed by the authorities from schools and religious buildings where they have taken refuge.
The U.N.'s Children's Fund said in an aid agency meeting last Friday that eight camps initially set up by the government to shelter disaster victims in Bogalay were now empty after victims were forced to leave, just one month after the deadly cyclone.
``The government is moving people unannounced," said Teh Tai Ring, a UNICEF official, adding that authorities were ``dumping people in the approximate location of the villages, basically with nothing." Camps were also being closed in Labutta, another town in the delta, a low-lying area that took the brunt of the cyclone.
According to aid workers in Yangon, nearly 500 ethnic Korean Christians who took refuge in Yangon's Christian missionary compounds were ordered to go back to their cyclone-stricken villages in Labutta township.
While Yangon divisional chief general Hla Htay Win made the order, he failed to provide assurances on how the refugees would be helped and taken care of once they reached their respective villages which had been completely destroyed by the storm.
In late May, about 1,000 cyclone refugees were forced to leave Ma-au Bin town where they were taking shelter and ordered to return to their crushed villages in Bogalay by the local authorities, according to lawyer U Aye Myint from legal aid group, Guiding Star, in Myanmar.
Private donors and volunteers traveling to the Irrawaddy delta to deliver aid on May 25 in about 27 vehicles were stopped in Hlaingtharyar Township, an outskirt of Yangon, by the local authorities, and the drivers taken to a technical college compound and questioned.
Others were turned back, while some people had their driving licenses taken away by the authorities. The incident happened at Pan Hlaing Bridge, the main route used by donors from Yangon to travel to the disaster zones. The route has since been shut down by authorities.
Aid workers also complain that in some camps in the disaster zone, makeshift tents, donated by the U.N. and other foreign aid groups, are being sold to refugees at Kyats 500 (50 cents) per tent by the local authorities.
It goes without saying that the appalling situation and unfair treatment of the victims calls for Ban Ki-Moon to make an immediate second visit to Myanmar, this time urging the xenophobic generals of this isolated country to translate their promises into action.
Meanwhile, the U.N. must send a strong and clear message to the rulers of Myanmar that they will be held responsible for any further deaths caused as a result of their negligence.
Finally, it is imperative that the U.N. leader personally supervises, monitors and leads relief efforts on the ground to ensure the hundreds of thousands of people still at risk are saved.
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment