Myanmar cyclone victims getting low-quality supplies - Yahoo! NewsYahoo! My
Myanmar cyclone victims getting low-quality supplies 26 minutes ago
YANGON, Myanmar - Many cyclone victims are getting spoiled or poor-quality food
from Myanmar's junta instead of the enriched supplies being delivered by foreign
governments and charities, victims and aid workers said Tuesday.
A longtime foreign resident of Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon, told The
Associated Press in Bangkok by telephone that angry government officials
complained to him about the military misappropriating aid.
He said the officials told him that high-energy biscuits rushed in on the World
Food Program's first flights were sent to a military warehouse. They 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,
he said.
The foreign resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because identifying
himself could jeopardize his safety, said it was not known if the high quality
food was being sold on the black market or consumed by the military.
A government spokesman did not immediately respond to an e-mailed query from the
AP seeking a comment. The allegations were impossible to confirm independently
because of the junta's restrictions on journalists.
The World Food Program said it had not heard of its supplies disappearing.
"We've had no reports whatsoever about any incidents of this kind," Marcus
Prior, a WFP spokesman, said in Bangkok.
CARE Australia's country director in Myanmar, Brian Agland, said members of his
local staff brought back some of the rotting rice being distributed in the
devastated Irrawaddy River 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's unclear whether the rice, which he described as dark gray in color and
consisting of very small grains, is coming from the government or from mills in
the area or warehouses hit by the cyclone.
"Certainly, we are concerned that (poor quality rice) is being distributed,"
Agland said by telephone from Yangon. "The level of nutrition is very low."
Many survivors also said they were either not getting any aid or were being
handed rotten, moldy rice.
The military, which has ruled with an iron fist since 1962, has taken control of
most aid sent by other countries, including the United States, which made its
first aid delivery Monday and sent in another cargo plane Tuesday with 19,900
pounds of blankets, water and mosquito netting. A third flight was to take in a
24,750-pound load.
U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Douglas Powell said the situation remained fluid, but
flights were expected to continue after Tuesday, which appeared to broaden the
original agreement for three flights on Monday and Tuesday.
State television said the death toll had gone up by 2,335 to 34,273, and the
number of missing stood at 27,838 after many of those listed as missing were
accounted for.
The United Nations says the actual death toll could be between 62,000 and
100,000.
State television said the navy commander in chief, Rear Adm. Soe Thein, told
Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific forces, that basic needs
of the storm victims are being fulfilled and that "skillful humanitarian workers
are not necessary."
The U.N. said the World Food Program is getting in only 20 percent of the food
needed because of bottlenecks, logistics problems and government-imposed
restrictions.
"There is obviously still a lot of frustration that this aid effort hasn't
picked up pace" 10 days after the cyclone hit, said Richard Horsey, spokesman
for the U.N. humanitarian operation in Bangkok, the capital of neighboring
Thailand.
Cyclone Nargis devastated the delta on May 2-3, leaving about 62,000 people dead
or missing according to the government count. The U.N. has suggested the death
toll is likely to be more than 100,000.
With their homes washed away and large tracts of land under water, some 2
million survivors, mostly poor rice farmers, are living in abject misery, facing
disease and starvation.
The survivors are packed into Buddhist monasteries or camping in the open,
drinking water contaminated by fecal matter, with dead bodies and animal
carcasses floating around. Food and medicine are scarce.
Yangon was pounded by heavy rain Monday and more downpours were expected
throughout the week, further hindering aid deliveries.
For many, the rainwater was the only source of clean drinking water.
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."
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was
pressing the junta and its foreign allies for Myanmar to allow in not only food
and supplies but disaster relief experts.
"We are calling on them to allow the international community to help the people
of Burma," she told reporters. "We are doing everything we can because this is a
humanitarian issue, not a political issue, and we want to make very clear that
our only desire is to help the people of Burma."
The government has barred nearly all foreigners experienced in managing such
catastrophes from going to the delta west of Yangon and is expelling those who
have managed to go in.
Jean-Sebastien Matte, an emergency coordinator with Doctors Without Borders,
said his foreign staff have repeatedly been forced to return to Yangon from the
delta.
Armed police checkpoints were set up outside Yangon on the roads to the delta,
and all foreigners were being sent back by policemen who took down their names
and passport numbers.
"No foreigners allowed," a policeman said Tuesday after waving a car back.
In a newspaper interview, Germany's development minister, Heidemarie
Wieczorek-Zeul, said China and Russia need to push for U.N. Security Council
action to pressure Myanmar to throw open the door to international aid.
The foreign resident who relayed the reports of the military switching its own
biscuits for the WFP's aid also said several businessmen had been told to give
the government cash donations of no less than $1,800 each to aid cyclone
victims.
Companies involved have included jade mining concerns in Hpakant, restaurants
and construction companies in Yangon, he said.
___
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Alexander G. Higgins in
Geneva contributed to this report.
anything that close to China and Vietnam is gonna be screwed up anyway but this takes the cake ( so to speak)
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