Mission & Justice

1/6/08

The UN labour agency says Myanmar’s military government may increasingly use forced labour in the reconstruction of the cyclone-devastated country. In a report, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) called on donors and aid agencies to stay vigilant against any exploitation by the country’s rulers. The government and aid agencies should be “conscious of the increased risk of incidences of forced labour, child labour, human trafficking and migrant labour” in the efforts to rebuild the country, a report by the ILO’s liaison officer in Myanmar said. The report by Steve Marshall was discussed on Saturday by a key committee of the ILO, at its annual conference being held in Geneva

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28/5/08

It will be years before the Irrawaddy Delta recovers from Cyclone Nargis - but a visitor to the Sinkan refugee camp could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss was about. Its 39 blue tents are neat and evenly spaced and their occupants look clean and contented. A team of white-uniformed doctors and nurses tends to their medical needs, white UN Toyota Land Cruisers stand in attendance and a group of Japanese diplomats inspects the camp, snapping photographs as they go. This is the version of Cyclone Nargis that the Burmese Government presents to the world - a tragic misfortune, now well on the way to being overcome with discipline, good organisation and a bit of international help.

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26/5/08

Representatives of more than 50 nations met in cyclone-stricken Burma last night to pledge billions of dollars towards the country’s rebuilding as speculation grew that the junta was preparing to release imprisoned pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. Burma’s ruling generals want the world to donate nearly $US11billion ($11.5 billion) to rebuild the country and help about 2.4 million survivors in need of aid. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last night he was hopeful “a turning point” had been reached in tackling Burma’s crisis. The one-day, 52-nation conference began on a note of optimism following promises by the military junta that foreign aid workers could enter the most devastated areas, from which they have been banned since the cyclone three weeks ago.

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Melanie Lee; 20/5/08

Cyclone-stricken Burma will accept more foreign relief help, the Association of South-East Asian Nations said after an emergency meeting yesterday. Burma also agreed at the ASEAN meeting in Singapore to let its Asian neighbours co-ordinate foreign help for cyclone victims, Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said. “We will establish a mechanism so that aid from all over the world can flow into Myanmar (Burma).” The entry of aid workers from outside ASEAN would be reviewed case by case. “We have to look at specific needs, there will not be uncontrolled access,” he said.

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Harriet Alexander; 20/5/08

The Department of Foreign Affairs has known since October that family members of the Burmese junta who are banned from conducting business in Australia are living here but has taken no action. Local Burmese have identified children of the regime’s most senior figures studying in Australian universities, despite some of their names being among the 418 political and military leaders on the Federal Government’s financial sanctions list. Academics at NSW’s Macquarie University told the department and the Reserve Bank soon after the list was released in October that at least three of those named were living in Sydney.

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19/5/08

Thousands of children in Burma will starve to death in two to three weeks unless food is rushed to them, an aid agency warned yesterday as an increasingly angry international community pleaded for approval to mount an all-out effort to help cyclone survivors. The UN said Burma’s isolationist ruling generals were even forbidding the import of communications equipment, hampering already difficult contact among relief agencies. A UN situation report said yesterday that emergency relief from the international community had reached an estimated 500,000 people. But the regime insists it will handle distribution to victims of Cyclone Nargis. The World Food Program, which is leading the outside emergency food effort, said yesterday it had managed to get rice and beans to 212,000 of the 750,000 people it thinks are most in need after the May 2 storm, which has left at least 134,00 dead or missing.

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17/5/08; http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23712604-12335,00.html
Burma today said more than 133,000 people were dead or missing in the Nargis cyclone disaster, with the huge increase due to difficulties in confirming the figures, state television reported. However it said 77,738 were dead and 55,917 missing

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Kenneth Denby; 16/5/08

The Burmese authorities have sealed off the cyclone disaster zone from the outside world, expelling foreign aid workers and placing multiple checkpoints along roads into the Irrawaddy Delta, to the despair of foreign diplomats and aid workers. The isolation of the delta confirms the growing sense among international organisations that the Burmese junta is never going to allow a wide-ranging foreign-led aid effort of the kind that was mounted in several countries after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Aid groups are trying instead to mount a stealth operation in which Western aid is distributed by government organisations, local aid workers, and international staff from countries that the regime regards as friendly and compliant.

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15/5/08

The official death toll from Cyclone Nargis which hit Burma on May 3 has been updated to 38,491, with 27,838 people missing, state radio said. The new toll announced today was raised from 34,273 dead and 27,836 missing, issued yesterday. As well as the dead and missing, another 1,403 were injured, state radio said. However, the United Nations has warned the number of dead likely exceeds 100,000, and that many more may die unless vital aid reaches up to two million survivors.

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Paul Maley; 14/5/08

Senior aid officials in Burma have warned that Australia’s first aid shipment to the stricken country, which arrived yesterday, will almost certainly be rebadged as the property of the Burmese Government, with sizeable portions likely to be siphoned off by corrupt officials. Kevin Rudd yesterday launched a fresh attack on the “demonstrably inadequate” response of the Burmese junta to the May 2 cyclone, which has left up to 100,000 people dead and a further 1.5 million homeless. The Prime Minister told parliament an RAAF C-117 Globemaster aircraft had touched down in Rangoon with 31 tonnes of supplies. On board were water purification tablets, medical supplies, tarpaulins and blankets.

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