Mission & Justice

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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16/5/08

The official death toll from Cyclone Nargis, which swept through Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta, has reached 77,738, state television has said. It also reported on Friday that another 55,917 people are missing and 19,359 are injured. The news comes as Myanmar faces increased pressure to allow international aid into the country. The previous official death toll was 43,328, but independent experts say the actual number could be much higher. British officials say the total number of people dead and missing could be more than 200,000.

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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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13/5/08

The US’s first airlift landed in Burma last night after prolonged negotiations with the military junta that has restricted international efforts to help up to two million cyclone survivors at risk of disease and starvation. In what was seen as a huge concession by the junta, the unarmed US military C-130 cargo plane, packed with supplies, flew from the Thai air force base of Utapao into Rangoon. Two more air shipments were scheduled to land today. Relief workers who remain prohibited from entering Burma warned it could take weeks to reach many cyclone victims because of the nation’s decrepit infrastructure. Such a delay will increase the number of people at risk and raise the possibility of unrest, they said.

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Aung Hla Tun; 12/5/08

Desperate survivors of Cyclone Nargis poured out of Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta yesterday in search of food, water and medicine as aid workers warned that up to 1.5 million faced death if emergency supplies did not get through soon. Buddhist temples and schools in towns on the outskirts of the storm’s trail of destruction were now makeshift refugee centres for women, children and the elderly as millions of dollars in emergency aid was stalled on airport tarmacs pending permission to enter the country and hundreds of relief specialists were waiting for visas. The reclusive military government is accepting aid from the outside world, including from the UN, but has made clear it will not let in the foreign logistics teams needed to transport the aid into the inundated delta.

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