What's Really Going On In Burma - Eye Witness Accounts

Frustrated Burmese Organize Aid Forays Ad Hoc Groups Formed In Cyclone's Aftermath, But Causes May Widen Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, June 21, 2008; Page A01 RANGOON -- Seven weeks after huge swaths of Burma were savaged by a cyclone and tidal wave, a new and remarkable citizen movement is delivering emergency supplies to survivors neglected by the military government's haphazard relief effort. The scores of ad hoc Burmese groups, many of them based here in the country's largest city, are not overtly political. But they are reviving a kind of social activism that has been largely repressed by successive military rulers here. Defying roadblocks and bureaucratic obstruction, volunteers have reached devastated villages in many parts of the Irrawaddy Delta, dropping off food, drinking water and other essentials and bringing back photos that contradict claims in the state media that life is returning to normal. Some members of the groups say they hope to keep working together when the cyclone damage is finally repaired and turn toward other activities that carry shades of political activism in this tightly controlled state. With residents' frustration over the official relief effort mounting, pledges of support and donations to the National League for Democracy, the main opposition group in Burma, also called Myanmar, have doubled since the cyclone, according to a student leader of the league. The storm, which came ashore on the night of May 2-3, killed an estimated 134,000 people and created severe hardship for 2.4 million more. The country's deeply xenophobic junta turned aside many offers of foreign help, agreeing to let in substantial numbers of international aid workers only after U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon flew to the country May 22 with a personal appeal. By then, however, homegrown groups were already mobilized, working to offset the tragic shortcomings of the government operation. Down a street lined with gold and ruby merchants, where dealers charm clients over tiny tables set with tea and chess, employees in the back room of a gem shop one recent morning were swapping evidence: photos of rotten government food handouts. A week earlier, people in the shops said, more than a dozen local jewelers had loaded 100 bags of rice, 20 bags of beans, tarpaulins and blankets onto a truck donated by a supplier and set off at midnight for the storm-ravaged town of Labutta. They returned with photos of homeless villagers lining up for tins of food at a makeshift camp, a tear-stained boy who, they said, had lost his entire family to the storm's fierce tidal surge, and rotten rice -- yellow, fist-size chunks of it, piled like rocks in bags donated by the government-affiliated Myanmar Red Cross. "When I saw what they were being fed, I was shaking I was so angry," said a shop assistant, 26, narrating each photo as she passed it to a customer. The informal organizations are often based on occupation. Artists, doctors, students and the gem dealers have formed separate groups. In other cases, the groups are made up of friends coming together to help. Rest of article.

Burmese chess players in Subic worried

By Robert Gonzaga Central Luzon Desk First Posted 02:12:00 05/13/2008 SUBIC BAY FREEPORT – They spoke haltingly, in fractured English, about the gnawing fear of the unknown. “We [are] here [because of] duty. We stay [here] for duty,” said Grandmaster Win Lay Zaw, 45, leader of Burma’s (Myanmar’s) six-member team in the 2nd Philippine Open International chess championship here. While the commitment to represent their country, devastated by Cyclone Nargis as it ripped through the Irrawaddy Delta on May 2, was foremost in their minds, all the Burmese chess players wanted was information – any piece of news – on the fate of their relatives back home. “Stay(ing) here [is a] duty. We all want [to] go [home]. But no call,” Zaw told the Inquirer on Sunday night. Zaw said officials of his country’s chess federation had yet to advise his team on whether it would pull out from the competitions here and return to Burma. The team was then in Singapore when it received information that the cyclone hit Burma. The government’s death toll stood at 23,350 with 37,019 missing. For these sportsmen, who devour every bit of news from CNN and other international news networks or the Internet, the only thing worse than knowing is not knowing what is happening in their country. They left their families, some of whom live in Rangoon (Yangon), the area hardest hit by Nargis. In the first few days of the disaster, Zaw said he tried calling friends, relatives and even acquaintances in Burma to get news in between preparations and competitions, but no call or email could reach home. Not knowing whether family members were among the living or dead has become a relentless torture for the chess team. Zaw was worried about his sister in Rangoon. “I don’t know if she’s…,” he said, his voice trailing off. A ray of hope shone on Saturday when the team received a call from Mgmg Lwin, president of Burma’s chess federation, from Rangoon. Federation Master (FM) Kyaw Kyaw Soc, 38, was told by Lwin that his family was “fine; they [are] OK.” Soc’s mother, four sisters and a brother lived in Rangoon. Though his worries had somewhat eased, Soc said he and other team members could not take their minds away from their homeland. “[When images from the news reports that] we watch enter our head, [we] can’t think well. But sometimes, [it’s] fine. Sometimes,” he said. FM Lin Naing Kyaw, 26, who has been married for only three months, said: “Nearly every day my wife calls. [I am] so happy because I think [something] bad happen[ed] [at] first. [My] father is in Yangon. He [is] OK.” In fact, Kyaw is only one of two team members who can breathe easier. International Master (IM) Nay Oo Kyaw Tun, 32, who lives in Mandalay, has an uncle in Rangoon. “I am sad about what happened. Our people, so sad. My Uncle, no news.” Mandalay is more than 640 kilometers from Rangoon. IM Aung Aung, 40, also from Mandalay, said: “My brother [is in] Yangon. No news. Don’t know.” IM Zaw Htun Wynn, 26, a bachelor and also from Mandalay, said: “Every one [in my] family live in Mandalay. No problem. But news is very, very sad.” After 10 rounds Monday, the Burmese players’ scores were Wynn, 3.5; W. Zaw, 2.5; Tun, Soc, 2; and Kyaw and Aung, 1. Their days in this bustling port now follow a familiar routine – long stretches of games against Asia’s best, followed by extended hours of watching CNN and reading news reports on the Internet. They declined to answer questions about acts made by their country’s military rulers during the tragedy. But when told of reports that the junta allowed the entry of aid from other countries, they nodded and smiled. “We [are] grateful. Yes,” Zaw said. Chess, the players said, had become a “welcome distraction,” offering an escape from Nargis and its aftermath. After the competitions wrap up on May 14, the team will return to Burma on May 18. They are, however, uncertain how Burma will rise from the tragedy and how they will rebuild their lives. “We have no plans. We don’t know what [to] do,” Zaw said. Copyright 2008 Central Luzon Desk. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Sign of a Sick Society

One of the things that supposedly makes humans "superior" to animals is that we bury our dead - or burn them and offer them up to the heavens where burial is not feasible. But in Burma, dead bodies are being left to rot because they are "strangers" while isolated villagers wait for help that will never come. From The New York Times Bodies Flow Into Hard-Hit Area of Myanmar By THE NEW YORK TIMES Published: May 11, 2008 THANAP PIN SATE, Myanmar — The bodies come and go with the tides. They wash up onto the riverbanks or float grotesquely downstream, almost always face down. They are all but ignored by the living. In the southern reaches of the Irrawaddy Delta, where the only access to hundreds of small villages is by boat, the remains of the victims of the May 3 cyclone that swept across Myanmar are rotting in the sun. “These people are strangers,” said Kyaw Swe, a clothing merchant who said he expected the tides to take away the six bloated bodies lying on the muddy banks near his collapsed home. “They come from upstream.” Villagers here say it is not their responsibility to handle the dead. But the government presence is barely felt in the serpentine network of canals outside Bogale and Phyarpon, devastated towns in the delta, one of the areas hardest hit by the storm. Rest of story.