At least 22,000 feared dead in Myanmar cyclone - Page 4

gunnut · 05-12-2008, 14:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Army5339

Time.com seems to be advocating a forceful invasion of Myanmar to save the people there.
Is It Time to Invade Burma? - TIME

Hehe, WAB is way ahead of the curve on this one.

At least 22,000 feared dead in Myanmar cyclone

RyanBaily already voiced this opinion on May 6th. France echoed the concern a bit later, wondering if the international community should just barge in and help those people in the name of UN.

Dreadnought · 05-12-2008, 14:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunnut

Hehe, WAB is way ahead of the curve on this one.

At least 22,000 feared dead in Myanmar cyclone

RyanBaily already voiced this opinion on May 6th. France echoed the concern a bit later, wondering if the international community should just barge in and help those people in the name of UN.

Its a total shame when one has to threaten another country with war in order to help people that are in desperate need or food,medicine and shelter.

If the U.N. has to I'm for it.

Walking Dead · 05-13-2008, 18:35 PM

Myanmar police block aid workers, food piles up - Yahoo! News

Quote:

YANGON, Myanmar - Police barred foreign aid workers from reaching cyclone survivors in hard-hit areas Tuesday, while emergency food shipments backed up at the main airport for Myanmar's biggest city.

Relief workers reported some storm survivors were being given spoiled or poor-quality food rather than nutrition-rich biscuits sent by international donors, adding to fears that the ruling military junta in the Southeast Asian country could be misappropriating assistance.

U.N. officials warned that the threat was escalating for the 2 million people facing disease and hunger in low-lying areas battered by the storm unless relief efforts increased dramatically.

Ten days after the tempest, reaching the worst-affected areas was getting more and more difficult.

Checkpoints manned by armed police were set up Tuesday on roads leading to the Irrawaddy River delta and all international aid workers and journalists were turned back by officers who took down their names and passport numbers. Drivers were interrogated.
"No foreigners allowed," one policeman said after waving a car back.

Supplies piled up at Yangon's main airport, which does not have equipment to lift cargo off big Boeing 747s. It took 200 Burmese volunteers to unload by hand a plane carrying more than 60 tons of relief supplies, including school tents, said Dubai Cares, a United Arab Emirates aid group.

A report from a Tuesday meeting of the U.N. center overseeing logistics said the airport was a bottleneck in the aid effort. "Discharging operations at Yangon airport are hampered by limitations of handling equipment, fuel availability and worsening weather conditions," it said.

The report said Britain's Department for International Development had offered to send in machinery for unloading jumbo jets and other aircraft.

With rain falling on Yangon on Tuesday and downpours predicted later this week, aid officials also said there was not enough warehouse space to protect the supplies beginning to flow in after the regime agreed to accept foreign help.

Even the quicker pace is not enough, U.N. officials warned.

"We fear a second catastrophe (in Myanmar) unless we're able to put in place quickly a maximum of aid and a major logistical effort comparable with the response to the (2004) tsunami," said Elisabeth Byrs of the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs.

The tsunami killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen nations around the Indian Ocean, prompting the largest relief operation ever known. Tens of thousands of aid workers poured into devastated areas and the world community donated billions of dollars.

Myanmar's state television said the number of confirmed deaths from Cyclone Nargis had risen by 2,335, to 34,273, and the number of missing stood at 27,838. The United Nations estimates the actual death toll from the May 3 storm could be between 62,000 and 100,000.

Some victims and aid workers said that in many cases spoiled or poor-quality food was being given to survivors.

A longtime foreign resident of Yangon told The Associated Press that angry government officials were complaining that high-energy biscuits rushed in on the World Food Program's first flights were sent to a military warehouse.

Those supplies were exchanged for what the officials described as "tasteless and low-quality" biscuits produced by the Industry Ministry to be handed out to cyclone victims, the resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity because identifying himself could jeopardize his safety.

A spokesman for the military regime would not comment.

U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said that while Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had expressed concern about food aid being diverted to non-cyclone victims, so far there was no evidence that was happening.

"It is a fact that a very small percentage of victims so far have received the aid, but from yesterday until today ... the situation has improved in terms of the delivery," she told reporters in New York.

CARE Australia's country director in Myanmar, Brian Agland, reported problems with some rice going to survivors.

He said members of his local staff brought back samples of rotting rice that was being distributed in the Irrawaddy delta.

"I have a small sample in my pocket, and it's some of the poorest quality rice we've seen," he said. "It's affected by salt water and it's very old."

It was unclear whether the rice, which Agland described as dark gray in color and consisting of very small grains, had come from the government or from mills or warehouses in the delta.

"Certainly, we are concerned that (poor quality rice) is being distributed," Agland said by telephone from Yangon. "The level of nutrition is very low."

The military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, has taken control of most supplies sent in by other countries.

Among those are the United States, which made its first aid delivery Monday and sent in another cargo plane Tuesday packed with blankets, water and mosquito netting. A third shipment was en route.

The head of Myanmar's navy, Rear Adm. Soe Thein, told Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific forces, that basic needs of storm victims were being fulfilled and that "skillful humanitarian workers are not necessary," according to state television.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington was pressing the junta and its foreign allies to allow in not only food and supplies but disaster relief experts.

"We are doing everything we can, because this is a humanitarian issue, not a political issue," she said. "We want to make very clear that our only desire is to help the people of Burma."

Survivors are jamming Buddhist monasteries or camping in the open. Drinking water has been contaminated by fecal matter, and dead bodies and animal carcasses are floating around. Food and medicine are scarce.

The international Red Cross said its delegation in Myanmar found an urgent need for more medical supplies in the Irrawaddy delta.

"During the cyclone, many people held onto trees to avoid being blown away," Red Cross official Bridget Gardner said. "They were almost 'sand blasted' by dirt and saltwater; (many) lost the top layer of their skin and it's important that these injuries are treated before infections can set in."

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Alexander G. Higgins in Geneva contributed to this report.

If this continues to follow the same path, I would not object to a more forceful approach. These people need help.

gunnut · 05-13-2008, 19:16 PM

UN is too spineless to do anything.

Walking Dead · 05-14-2008, 13:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunnut

UN is too spineless to do anything.

Sadly, it is true.

I find this article interesting. Sounds like old Soviet-style propaganda.

FOXNews.com - Burma to Thai PM: Cyclone Situation Under Control, No More Help Needed - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

Quote:

BANGKOK, Thailand — Thailand's prime minister says Burma believes its cyclone relief operations are under control and it doesn't need foreign experts.

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej says Burma's ruling junta, which has renamed the country Myanmar, gave him its "guarantee" Wednesday that there are no disease outbreaks and no starvation among survivors of devastating Cyclone Nargis.
Samak says Burma's rulers do not want any foreign aid workers because they "have their own team to cope with the situation."

Samak returned Wednesday from Burma, where he met with Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein.

Samak also visited a government relief center.

He said: "From what I have seen I am impressed with their management."

Walking Dead · 05-16-2008, 13:37 PM

Another sad, disturbing update:

FOXNews.com - U.N. Plans New Plea to Burma on Aid Needs as Death Toll Nears 78,000 - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

Quote:

RANGOON, Burma — State television says the death toll from the Burma cyclone has reached almost 78,000, with another 56,000 people missing.

The United Nations said Friday that severe restrictions by Burma's military junta have left aid agencies largely in the dark about the extent of survivors' suffering two weeks after a killer cyclone left up to 2.5 million people destitute.

John Holmes, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, will go to Burma, renamed Myanmar by the ruling military junta, on Sunday to try to convince junta leaders to grant more access for U.N. relief workers and massively scale up aid efforts, said Amanda Pitt, a U.N. spokeswoman in Bangkok, Thailand.

Officials of various U.N. agencies called a news conference in Bangkok to give an update on their relief operations. The most basic data was missing, from the number of orphans to the extent of diseases and the number of refugee camps.

They also couldn't say whether all survivors are in camps, on the move or still living in destroyed villages in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta, an area the size of Austria. Cyclone Nargis also pounded Rangoon, Burma's main city.

RelatedStories
Red Cross: Burma Cyclone Death Toll Could Rise to Nearly 128,000 Burma to Thai PM: Cyclone Situation Under Control, No More Help Needed Photo Essays
Myanmar Cyclone Aftermath "The risk increases with each passing day," Pitt said, referring to the vulnerability of survivors to outbreaks of disease and other problems.

The Red Cross fears the death toll may be as high as 128,000; the U.N. estimates more than 100,000 died.

In the absence of a clear picture, the U.N. estimates some 1.5 million to 2.5 million survivors are in desperate need of food, water, shelter and medical care. Aid groups have reached only 270,000 so far.

The junta insists Myanmar nationals and government agencies, including the military, can handle relief operations, particularly aid distribution.

"We still have obstacles to relief workers getting to the delta region, which doesn't help," Pitt said. "We are concerned about the effects on the people. It is clear, from what everyone is saying, the aid effort is far from over."

The United Nations says the regime has issued 40 visas to its staffers and another 46 to nongovernment agencies but has confined the personnel to the immediate Rangoon area.

Steve Marshall, a U.N. official who just came out of Myanmar and is the country's liaison officer for the International Labor Organization, laid out the hurdles that aid agencies face.

He said the military has set up checkpoints on the two main roads to the delta to keep foreigners out of the disaster zone. Even local staff have to negotiate with the military to gain access to the camps.

"Things will still get done, but they will not be done as effectively, efficiently or as quickly, which means delays, which means increasing risk in terms of health, security and in terms of longer-term rehabilitation and getting back to a normal lifestyle," he said.

The U.N. Children's Fund said Friday the agency's fourth flight into Burma, scheduled for Saturday, would deliver several tons of food for malnourished children. Radio broadcasts are trying to help lost children find their families, it said.

Also scheduled to arrive this weekend are two of 10 tons of medicine and medical equipment from Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, said agency executive Amos Avgar.

In the absence of an organized relief effort by the government, ordinary people are stepping in, with shopkeepers handing out free rice porridge and medical students caring for the sick.

Daw Mya Win, a 49-year-old grocer in a Rangoon suburb, cooks rice porridge every day to feed anyone who comes. She also sends pots of it to some of the thousands of homeless sheltering in Buddhist monasteries.

College students are going door-to-door, handing out a few pennies to families for rice.

"Whenever we distribute rice and clothing, I can see the faces of the cyclone victims light up. It is very rewarding to see them smile," said Nyi Nyi, 21.

Private citizens who have tried to take aid from Rangoon to the delta said they have been blocked by police checkpoints and ordered to hand over their supplies to the army.

The military, which has ruled the country for 46 years, has denied allegations that it has diverted relief supplies, and solid evidence has yet to surface. On Thursday, the government warned hoarders of aid they face legal action.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Thursday the United Nations was organizing an emergency summit in Asia to coordinate global efforts to help the survivors. He did not say when it might take place.

gunnut · 05-16-2008, 14:27 PM

Myanmar military government might not be good at disaster relief, but it's pretty good at counting votes. Their new pro-military constitution just passed by 90+% of the votes with a close to 100% voter turn out. I wonder how the 2 million displaced residents managed to get to their voting stations.

gunnut · 05-19-2008, 14:43 PM

It seems that Myanmar government has relented somewhat and will allow aids from neighboring Asian country to reach the affected area directly.

The disaster in Myanmar is at least equal to, if not exceeding the earthquake in China. Let us not forget these people in need.

dalem · 05-19-2008, 18:23 PM

Yeah, I figure 100K for Burma and 200K for China. Not good.

-dale

Ray · 05-20-2008, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunnut

UN is too spineless to do anything.

UN can do nothing if the Myanmar govt does not allow them in.

Two US carriers, I believe, are waiting with relief supplies in the Bay of Bengal too!

Ray · 05-20-2008, 11:39 AM

Quote:

From The Times
May 19, 2008
Britain to back air drops to deliver aid to Burmese cyclone victims

More at:

Britain to back air drops to deliver aid to Burmese cyclone victims - Times Online

A very noble idea.

The UN’s 2005 New York declaration, which sets out the “responsibility to protect” populations from crimes against humanity using “appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means”.

However, that would transgress the sovereignty of a nation and may have adverse reaction from the Burmese Air Force.````

If anything untoward happen, then instead of solving a crisis, it would add a newer dimension and may also ignite the idea that it is a new way to ensure imperialism through the back-door since any military reaction to such humanitarian effort, would invite reprisals etc!!

A real Catch 22 but a very good idea which should be pushed forward by the international community, in case the Myanmar military feels that foreigners on Myanmar soil as aid workers may subvert their authority and cause the people to rebel, as they have claimed!

Ray · 05-20-2008, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Save us from the rescuers
Calls for military action to force aid on Myanmar march us down a dangerous road.
By David Rieff
May 18, 2008
The decision by the government of Myanmar not to admit foreign humanitarian relief workers to help the victims of Cyclone Nargis has been met with fury, consternation and disbelief in much of the world.

With tens of thousands of people dead, up to 100,000 missing and more than a million displaced and without shelter, livelihood or possibly even sufficient food, the refusal of the military rulers of the country to let in foreign aid organizations or to open airports and waterways in more than a token way to shipments of aid supplies seems to be an act of sheer barbarism.

In response, Gareth Evans, the former Australian foreign minister who heads the International Crisis Group, made the case last week that the decision by Myanmar's authorities to default on their responsibilities to their own citizens might well constitute "a crime against humanity," and suggested that the United Nations might need to consider bringing aid to Myanmar non-consensually, justified on the basis of the "Responsibility to Protect Resolution" adopted at the 2005 U.N. World Summit by 150 member states.

To be sure, R2P (as the resolution is colloquially known) was not envisaged by the commission that framed it (and that Evans co-chaired) as a response to natural disasters, but rather as a way of confronting "genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity." To extend its jurisdiction to natural disasters is as unprecedented as it is radical. But as Evans put it last week, "when a government default is as grave as the course on which [Myanmar's] generals now seem to be set, there is at least a prima facie case to answer for their intransigence being a crime against humanity -- of a kind that would attract the responsibility-to-protect principle."

Evans' warning was clear. Myanmar's generals should not delude themselves into thinking that the international community would allow them to act in any way they wished -- not if it meant turning a blind eye to the dangers the cyclone's survivors faced. These dangers, according to the British charity Oxfam, threatened an additional 1.5 million lives.

And a number of European governments took the same line. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband stated that military action to ensure that the aid got to where it needed to go might be legal and necessary. And French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner echoed this argument, saying that France was considering bringing a resolution to the U.N. Security Council allowing for such steps to be taken.

For Kouchner, a co-founder of the French relief group Doctors Without Borders, this was familiar ground. He was a leading, and controversial, figure in the relief world long before joining Nicolas Sarkozy's government last year, and he is one of the originators of the so-called right of interference -- a hawkish interpretation of humanitarianism's moral imperative and an operational license that basically held that outside aid groups and governments had a presumptive right to intervene when governments abused their own people.

At first glance, the arguments of Evans, Miliband, Kouchner and the leaders of many mainstream relief organizations may seem like common-sense humanism. How could it be morally acceptable to subordinate the rights of people in need to the prerogatives of national sovereignty? In a globalized world in which people, goods and money all move increasingly freely, why should a national border -- that relic of the increasingly unimportant state system -- stand in the way of people dedicated to doing good for their fellow human beings? Why should the world stand by and allow an abusive government to continue to be derelict in its duties toward its own people?

Surely, to oppose this sort of humanitarian entitlement is a failure of empathy and perhaps even an act of moral cowardice.

This has been the master narrative of the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. It has dominated the speeches of officials and most of the media coverage, which has been imbued with an almost pornographic catastrophism in which aid agencies and journalists seem to be trying to outdo each other in the apocalyptic quality of their predictions. First, the U.S. charge d'affaires in Yangon, Myanmar's capital, without having left the city, told reporters that though only 22,000 people had been confirmed dead, she thought the toll could rise as high as 100,000. A few days later, Oxfam was out with its estimate of 1.5 million people being at risk from water-borne diseases -- without ever explaining how it arrived at such an extraordinarily alarming estimate.

In reality, no one yet knows what the death toll from the cyclone is, let alone how resilient the survivors will be. One thing is known, however, and that is that in crisis after crisis, from the refugee emergency in eastern Zaire after the Rwandan genocide, through the Kosovo crisis, to the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to the 2004 South Asian tsunami, many of the leading aid agencies, Oxfam prominent among them, have predicted far more casualties than there would later turn out to have been.

In part, this is because relief work is, in a sense, a business, and humanitarian charities are competing with every other sort of philanthropic cause for the charitable dollar and euro, and thus have to exaggerate to be noticed. It is also because coping with disasters for a living simply makes the worst-case scenario always seem the most credible one, and, honorably enough, relief workers feel they must always be prepared for the worst.

But whatever the motivations, it is really no longer possible to take the relief community's apocalyptic claims seriously. It has wrongly cried wolf too many times.

We should be skeptical of the aid agencies' claims that, without their intervention, an earthquake or cyclone will be followed by an additional disaster of equal scope because of disease and hunger. The fact is that populations in disaster zones tend to be much more resilient than foreign aid groups often make them out to be. And though the claim that only they can prevent a second catastrophe is unprovable, it serves the agencies' institutional interests -- such interventions are, after all, the reason they exist in the first place.

Unwelcome as the thought may be, reasonable-sounding suggestions made in the name of global solidarity and humanitarian compassion can sometimes be nothing of the sort. Aid is one thing. But aid at the point of a gun is taking the humanitarian enterprise to a place it should never go. And the fact that the calls for humanitarian war were ringing out within days of Cyclone Nargis is emblematic of how the interventionist impulse, no matter how well-intended, is extremely dangerous.

The ease with which the rhetoric of rescue slips into the rhetoric of war is why invoking R2P should never be accepted simply as an effort to inject some humanity into an inhumane situation (the possibility of getting the facts wrong is another reason; that too has happened in the past). Yes, the impulse of the interveners may be entirely based on humanitarian and human rights concerns. But lest we forget, the motivations of 19th century European colonialism were also presented by supporters as being grounded in humanitarian concern. And this was not just hypocrisy. We must not be so politically correct as to deny the humanitarian dimension of imperialism. But we must also not be so historically deaf, dumb and blind as to convince ourselves that it was its principal dimension.

Lastly, it is critically important to pay attention to just who is talking about military intervention on humanitarian grounds. Well, among others, it's the foreign ministers of the two great 19th century colonial empires. And where exactly do they want to intervene -- sorry, where do they want to live up to their responsibility to protect? Mostly in the very countries they used to rule.

When a British or French minister proposes a U.N. resolution calling for a military intervention to make sure aid is properly delivered in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, then, and only then, can we be sure we have put the specter of imperialism dressed up as humanitarianism behind us. In the meantime, buyer beware.

David Rieff is the author of many books, including "At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention" and "A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis."

Save us from the rescuers - Los Angeles Times

An interesting take from a US newspaper.

While indeed the international NGOs do over exaggerate, yet to believe that international aid, govt to govt and through NGOS does not mean a lot is not quite in order, or so I believe.

Aid, in any form, helps.

Ray · 05-20-2008, 12:33 PM

This is most important.

SEND in the LATRINES

05-20-2008, 12:33 PM	#58 (permalink)
Ray Postmaster General *Military Professional* Join Date: 08-20-03 Posts: 27,304 Country:	This is most important. SEND in the LATRINES Last edited by Ray : 05-20-2008 at 12:36 PM.

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05-13-2008, 19:16 PM	#49 (permalink)
gunnut *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 01-27-06 Location: DPRK, Democratik People's Republik of Kalifornia Posts: 9,896 Country:	UN is too spineless to do anything.

05-16-2008, 14:27 PM	#52 (permalink)
gunnut *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 01-27-06 Location: DPRK, Democratik People's Republik of Kalifornia Posts: 9,896 Country:	Myanmar military government might not be good at disaster relief, but it's pretty good at counting votes. Their new pro-military constitution just passed by 90+% of the votes with a close to 100% voter turn out. I wonder how the 2 million displaced residents managed to get to their voting stations.

05-19-2008, 14:43 PM	#53 (permalink)
gunnut *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 01-27-06 Location: DPRK, Democratik People's Republik of Kalifornia Posts: 9,896 Country:	It seems that Myanmar government has relented somewhat and will allow aids from neighboring Asian country to reach the affected area directly. The disaster in Myanmar is at least equal to, if not exceeding the earthquake in China. Let us not forget these people in need.

05-19-2008, 18:23 PM	#54 (permalink)
dalem Lord High Hullabalooster *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 11-23-04 Location: Columbia Heights, MN Posts: 8,566 Country:	Yeah, I figure 100K for Burma and 200K for China. Not good. -dale

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