BurmaNet News, May 23, 2008

[Editor]

May 23, 2008 Issue #3474

QUOTE of the DAY
"I am Diego Maradona, and the world knows that I always rebel against
injustice.  And what outrages me today is what is happening to Mrs. Aung
San Suu Kyi. Does a Nobel Peace Prize recipient deserve to be imprisoned? 
Set her free!" - Diego Maradona

INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Cautious optimism over Than Shwe-Ban agreement
AP: UN chief tours still-flooded Myanmar delta
NY Times: Junta offers showcase camps, but most Burmese lack aid
Mizzima News: Junta's vote rigging efforts exposed again
Mizzima News: Junta frees 10 detained opposition youth members
Irrawaddy: Authorities tighten restrictions on private aid efforts

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Humanitarian aid also needed for Thai border refugees
Mizzima News: KNU vow to continue the fight, despite Chairman's death

BUSINESS / TRADE
The Times (UK): Britain’s aid millions channelled through tycoon with ties
to Burmese junta

INTERNATIONAL
AP: UN and Burma: A history of suspicion and failure
Irrawaddy: Suu Kyi must be freed, say US lawyers
Washington Post: Burmese aid request stirs concerns
LA Times: Hollywood celebrities urge human rights in Myanmar
Irrawaddy: France to seek UN Resolution on Burma aid deliveries

INTERVIEWS
DVB: Actor says much more aid needed for cyclone victims

PRESS RELEASE
Burma Campaign UK: Burma aid deal - hopeful But sceptical

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

May 23, Irrawaddy
Cautious optimism over Than Shwe-Ban agreement - Wai Moe

The leader of Burma’s ruling junta, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, has finally agreed
to allow in “all aid workers” after meeting with the head of the United
Nations in the country’s capital, Naypyidaw. But given the regime’s
history of mistrust towards non-governmental organizations and UN
agencies, most greeted the news with cautious optimism.

“I had a very good meeting with the Senior General and particularly on
these aid workers,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “He has agreed
to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities.”

Ban Ki-moon also said it was “an important development” that Than Shwe
agreed to make Rangoon the logistics center of the aid operation.

Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD),
called the news a positive step, provided the junta keeps its promises.

“We will be very glad if that news comes true,” Nyan Win, a spokesman for
the NLD, told The Irrawaddy on Friday. “But the good news should have come
for survivors immediately after the cyclone hit the country. Now it has
been three weeks.”

Several Bangkok-based aid workers who were waiting to get a visa to enter
Burma also responded cautiously to the announcement, noting that the
regime has a history of not keeping its promises.

Foreign aid workers already inside Burma need permission to travel outside
of Rangoon—another hurdle that will need to be cleared before an effective
response to the disaster is possible.

But some Burma watchers regarded Than Shwe’s decision to allow foreign aid
workers into the country—after weeks of refusing to even respond to
telephone calls from the UN secretary general—as a genuine concession.

Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese political analyst, said that Than Shwe needed to
make a compromise after facing weeks of unrelenting pressure.

He said that this pressure was both internal and external, leaving the
junta’s top general with no other choice than to end his resistance to
calls for a larger international aid effort.

“I heard even Burmese military officials are displeased with the junta’s
poor relief distribution system in the delta region and slow response to
international aid,” he said.

Many local Burmese aid workers who have been to delta region said that
doors that have been opened slightly can just as easily be closed again.
“This is the nature of the Than Shwe regime,” they said.

Larry Jagan, a British journalist who writes on Burma affairs, said he was
rather doubtful that Ban Ki-moon’s remark represented a major
breakthrough.

“I cannot believe that Snr-Gen Than Shwe is going to allow thousands of
foreigners to delta region,” he said.

Some analysts said that Than Shwe may be worried about the possibility of
the Burma issue being raised again at the UN Security Council.

France said on Thursday that it would push for a Security Council
resolution authorizing the aid delivery to Burma’s cyclone victims “by all
means necessary” if pressure from Ban Ki-moon and neighboring countries
doesn’t work.

The French ambassador to the UN, Jean-Maurice Ripert, said that France
will wait to hear from Ban Ki-moon and John Holmes, the UN humanitarian
chief, as well as from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to see
if there is any concrete progress on the issue of access to the victims.

“If not, we will have to go back to the Security Council,” said the
ambassador.

____________________________________

May 23, Associated Press
UN chief tours still-flooded Myanmar delta - John Heilprin

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon flew over Myanmar's flooded Irrawaddy delta on
Thursday, where the ravages of a cyclone stretched as far as the eye could
see: Villages were empty of life, flattened huts dissolved into vast areas
of water and people perched on rooftops.

Nearly three weeks after the storm, life was grim even at a refugee camp
showcased by Myanmar's junta during the carefully scripted tour.

"I'm very upset by what I've seen," Ban said, visibly shaken by the
firsthand look at the devastation, even though the areas to which he was
taken were far from those worst-hit by Cyclone Nargis.

Before his helicopter flyover, Ban had said he was bringing a "message of
hope," to Myanmar's people following the May 2-3 cyclone, which claimed
more than 78,000 lives, according to government figures, and left more
than 56,000 missing.

Myanmar's military rulers have been eager to show they have the relief
effort under control despite spurning the help of foreign disaster
experts, and much of the tour was taken up by statistics-laden lectures to
make that point.

The U.N. says up to 2.5 million cyclone survivors face hunger,
homelessness and potential outbreaks of deadly diseases, especially in the
low-lying areas of the Irrawaddy Delta close to the sea. It estimates that
aid has reached only about 25 percent of victims.

The four-hour tour Thursday included two stops — one at Mawlamyinegyun, an
aid distribution point stocked with bags of rice and cartons of bottled
drinking water and the other at a makeshift camp where 500 people huddled
in tents in the village of Kyondah, about 45 miles southwest of Yangon.

Still, the destruction in the region was relatively mild compared to
Labutta and Bogalay to the south, where the Red Cross said rivers and
ponds were full of corpses and many people have received no aid. Officials
gave no explanation for why Ban was not taken to those areas, where most
of the dead and missing were reported.

By contrast, Kyondah — which has electricity and clean water — is somewhat
of a showcase and was selected for visits by senior junta members, foreign
embassy officials and international aid organizations last week.

At the camp, the secretary-general was given a detailed explanation by
Maj. Gen. Lun Thi of how Kyondah, formerly a cluster of seven villages
with a population of 5,228, has expertly handled relief efforts. The
village had 122 dead and missing, he said.

He displayed charts saying the camp had 300 bags of rice, 64 boxes of
instant noodles, 1,500 eggs, 12,000 bottles of drinking water and 1,240
pieces of preserved meat. Also listed were napkins, steel bowls, blankets,
T-shirts, tarps and men's and ladies' underwear.

While the general spoke, Ban sat in the front row of an elaborately
constructed sitting room where bowls of fruit and soda were served. Ban
ate and drank nothing.

Once the lecture was over, Ban strode into the camp, stopping at tents to
look in on the homeless families, some with children as young as a day
old.

"The whole world is trying to help Myanmar," he told one family in the
camp, where inhabitants had cooking pots and blankets that appeared to be
new stacked neatly in their tents. Some smiled at him, but said little.

An idea of the storm's destructive force was more obvious from the air.

The two helicopters carrying Ban's party flew over seemingly endless
fields surrounded by flood waters, villages with destroyed houses, rivers
swollen past their banks, people huddled on rooftops or in makeshift
tents, or moving around in boats.

In some areas, the flooding stretched as far as the eye could see, with
people living in damaged homes that looked completely cut off.

So far, no one at the U.N. has ventured an estimate of how long the delta
is expected to remain submerged. But on Thursday, Ban said he expected the
relief operations to be needed for at least six months.

The question of pumps and levees, and whether they could be used to make
the flooding less extensive, is an issue U.N. officials say they might
raise at a regional aid conference Sunday.

Much of the area is normally planted with rice, but the water level is far
too high for that and the paddies are inundated with damaging salt water,
U.N. officials said.

The monsoon, bringing seasonal rains, is part of the normal cycle, but
doesn't usually cause flooding in the delta, they said.

Heavy rains have followed the cyclone, bringing more flooding and hardship
to survivors, but Ban expressed hope the rain might also cleanse the rice
paddies of the salt water.

"I praise the will, resilience and the courage of the people of Myanmar. I
bring a message of hope for the people of Myanmar," he said.

U.N. officials traveling with Ban said they were discussing with Chinese
authorities whether Ban could tour the earthquake zone in Sichuan after
leaving Myanmar. The officials requested anonymity, citing protocol.

Such a trip would give Ban a chance to compare the two countries'
responses and urge China — Myanmar's biggest ally — to put its weight
behind opening the flow of aid workers.

Ban tried to keep political issues off his plate.

Activists called on the U.N. chief to meet with detained pro-democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi and seek her release. The Nobel Peace prize
laureate has been confined to her Yangon villa for most of the last 18
years and her current period of detention is due to expire Monday. But a
meeting with Suu Kyi was not on Ban's official itinerary.

In a meeting earlier Thursday with Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, Ban
stressed international aid experts should be rushed in because the crisis
is too much for Myanmar to handle alone, according to a U.N. official at
the talks.

"The United Nations and all the international community stand ready to
help to overcome the tragedy," Ban said.

Thein Sein said the relief phase of the government's operation was ending
and that the focus had shifted to reconstruction, according to the U.N.
official at the talks who requested anonymity for reasons of protocol.

U.N. official Dan Baker said junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe would meet
with Ban on Friday at Naypyitaw. Ban earlier said Than Shwe had refused to
take his telephone calls and did not respond to two letters.

Yangon citizens did not seem optimistic that Ban's visit would make a
difference.

"Don't just talk, you must take action," said Eain Daw Bar Tha, abbot of a
Buddhist monastery on Yangon's outskirts. "The U.N. must directly help the
people with helicopters to bring food, clothes and clean water to the
really damaged places."

____________________________________

May 23, New York Times
Junta offers showcase camps, but most Burmese lack aid

The 68 blue tents are lined up in a row, with a brand-new water purifier
and boxes of relief supplies, stacked neatly but as yet undelivered and
not even opened. “If you don’t keep clean, you’ll be expelled from here,”
a camp manager barked at families in some tents.

The moment, at what has been billed as a model camp for survivors of
Cyclone Nargis, captured a common complaint among refugees and aid
volunteers: that the military junta that rules Myanmar cares more about
the appearance of providing aid than actually providing it.

As a result of heavy international pressure, the junta has embarked on a
campaign to show itself as responsive and open to aid as China has been in
the wake of the earthquake that killed tens of thousands in Sichuan
Province. On Thursday, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon,
arrived in Myanmar, as United Nations officials said that, nearly three
weeks after the cyclone that left 134,000 dead or missing, they were
finally seeing some small improvement.

The first 10 helicopters loaded with supplies from the World Food Program
arrived Thursday. But of the 2.4 million survivors, United Nations
officials say, only 500,000 have received any aid to date.

Mr. Ban received guided tours of apparently well-run government camps like
this one for survivors, presenting one vision of the junta’s response to
its people and the outside world. But interviews with survivors and
Burmese breaking rules to help them suggest a different story: of a
government that seems to have assisted little and, at times, with
startling callousness, has even expelled homeless refugees from shelters
that the junta needs for other purposes.

This relief camp in the western outskirts of Yangon, the country’s main
city, made headlines in Myanmar’s state-run press when the junta’s leader,
Senior Gen. Than Shwe, showed up there on Sunday to inspect the government
relief effort.

A few days after the general’s inspection, the camp’s tidy blue tents were
still set up but bottles of cooking oil inside many of them remained in
their boxes. Pots and pans still bore their brand-name stickers.

The camp’s sole “medical” tent, identified by a Red Cross flag, held
neither patients nor medicine. Its desk was staffed by two teenagers in
uniform. Police officers armed with rifles guarded the entrance, where a
new water purification tank donated by a local company was on prominent
display.

Just a short ride down a potholed road, a striking divide is evident, one
between the model relief camp and the continuing plight of many victims.

In the village of Ar Pyin Padan, a few minutes’ walk from here and just an
hour’s drive from the center of Yangon, 40 families who lost nearly
everything they owned crowded a rundown two-story school building. They
had pushed desks together to serve as makeshift beds.

Here, deliveries of relief supplies are so infrequent that the refugees
say they draw lots to get a small share whenever a donation comes in. For
drinking water, one said, the township authorities “threw some medicine”
into a nearby pond and told the villagers to drink from it.

Now the authorities are allowing no more refugees into the school. Instead
they are trying to evict those who are already there so that the building
can be used as a balloting station on Saturday. Despite the devastation
and misery left by the cyclone, the junta is pressing ahead with voting in
the two hardest-hit administrative divisions, Yangon and the Irrawaddy
Delta, to complete a referendum on a new Constitution intended to
perpetuate military rule. The Constitution was already overwhelmingly
approved in other parts of the country.

“They want us to move out,” said one man in the school shelter. “But we
have nowhere to go. Maybe if I had four or five sticks of bamboo, I could
rebuild my house and start over but they don’t even give us that. So
please donate to us. We need urgent help.”

He called the blue tents a short distance away beyond the rice paddies a
“V.I.P. camp” — hastily constructed and occupied by villagers tutored to
receive visiting junta generals or envoys from the United Nations.

In the past week, the state-run news media have given lavish coverage to
General Than Shwe and other generals visiting areas devastated by the
storm. At the same time, some critics say the junta has been obstructing
attempts by Burmese to deliver assistance to isolated villages.

“The government is not really interested in helping people,” said U Thura,
a dissident comedian who has been jailed four times in the past two
decades for his outspokenness. “What they want is to show to the rest of
the country and the world that they have saved the people and now it’s
time to go back to business as usual.”

Mr. Thura and other volunteers have been lugging relief goods into remote
villages in the Irrawaddy Delta over the past two weeks.

“Only a very small percentage of the victims get help at government-run
camps,” he said in an interview. “Those fortunate enough to live near
roads and rivers also get help. But people in remote villages that are
hard to reach don’t get anything. To make it worse, the people in the
Irrawaddy Delta have traditionally been antigovernment, so the junta
doesn’t like them.”

“Even if they die,” he said, “the generals won’t feel sorry for them.”

For these outlying villagers in the delta, occasional visits by people
like Mr. Thura have been virtually the only help they could get. But even
people like the ones much closer to Yangon, like Ar Pyin Padan, do not
appear to be faring much better.

“If they don’t get help soon, so many of them will die,” said a
36-year-old Yangon resident who has made four private aid runs into
villages near Hpayapon, a delta town. “It’s hot when the sun shines and
cold when it rains. When you see the villages, you just wonder how these
people sleep at night in the rain. They have no shelter to speak of.”

“They are still so stunned by what had happened to them that they show no
emotion,” he said. “They don’t even thank us when we give them food. They
just accept the help with no expression in their faces.”

He said that during their aid runs he and his friends saw people with
pneumonia, cholera and diarrhea. He spoke on condition of anonymity
because the private aid deliveries that his group conducts are prohibited.

Mr. Thura and other aid runners said they were hampered by reinforced
military checkpoints as well as by roads washed away and streams clogged
with storm debris. Those who reach towns with aid are told that such goods
must be distributed through the authorities. Many groups like Mr. Thura’s
break away and head deeper into the delta on their own.

“We usually drive from Yangon in five hours, switch to a boat and travel
four more hours and then we carry whatever we can — rice, noodles, energy
drinks, medicine, gaslights — on our backs and walk,” he said. “You really
need helicopters and boats to help these people.”

One of his recent trips took him to a village called Mangay. The village,
whose name means “gaze at” in Burmese, was a sorry sight, he said. Once a
prosperous community of 1,000 families who supplied dried fish throughout
Myanmar, Mangay was virtually wiped out: 700 families were left homeless
and 500 people were reportedly dead or missing.

Mr. Thura said more than 400 people were making donations for his aid runs
as a way of helping the victims directly. Still, his five teams of
renegade aid runners, who often use Buddhist monks as scouts, could only
manage to deliver 6.5 million kyats, about $6,500, of relief a day into 32
villages.

The aid runners are coming under increasing pressure from the government.

Twenty of Mr. Thura’s team members have received calls from the police
warning that they will be punished if they continue their work. On Sunday,
he said, his photographer, U Kyaw Swar Aung, was arrested and has not been
heard from since. He had been traveling around the delta making videos of
dead bodies, crying children and villagers who went insane after the storm
and distributing them as DVDs.

Meanwhile, Mr. Thura said the government seemed less focused on aid than
on making sure there were no more scenes like those to film. In one place,
he said he saw a pile of floating bodies clogging the narrow mouth of a
stream after they were dumped into the water by soldiers on a cleanup
operation.

“Then the soldiers used dynamite to blow up the bodies into shreds,” he said.

____________________________________

May 23, Mizzima News
Junta's vote rigging efforts exposed again

In yet another attempt at rigging the referendum the junta is issuing
ballot papers which have already been ticked 'Yes' to voters in the second
phase of the referendum to approve the draft constitution.

Officials and staff of Ward level Peace and Development Council (PDC) are
distributing the ballot papers from door-to-door starting last evening. On
one side the 'Yes' vote has already been ticked and on the rear it has
space for names and addresses of voters.

The officials told voters that they would have to bring their identity
cards along with them and could vote either on May 23 or 24.

"The 'Yes' vote has already been printed. It is indelible," a voter who
has received the ballot paper said.

The local authorities have imposed restriction of movement on the voters
on May 21 and told them not to travel outside their townships before the
poll date fixed on May 24.

"The people living in townships in which polling will be held on May 23
and 24 are restricted from travelling outside their respective townships,"
cars equipped with loudspeakers manned by police and officials announced.

Despite severe criticism from all quarters, the junta will hold its second
phase of the nationwide referendum tomorrow in these worst-hit areas of 40
townships in Rangoon Division and seven townships in Irrawaddy Division.

The referendum has been held in the rest of the country on May 10 this
year. The junta announced that the constitution has been approved by the
92.4 per cent of the total votes cast. It is said that there has been
widespread vote rigging and forced voting in its favour in the whole
country.

The ICRC issued a statement which says Cyclone Nargis which struck Burma
on May 2 and 3 killed over 100,000 people and affected 2.5 million.

The main opposition party the National League for Democracy (NLD) has
rejected the official result of the nationwide constitutional referendum.

As they have already got over 92 per cent 'Yes' votes, the constitution
can be easily approved even if all the remaining five million voters from
Rangoon and Irrawaddy Division cast 'No' votes in tomorrow's referendum.

____________________________________

May 23, Mizzima News
Junta frees 10 detained opposition youth members

Just as suddenly as they were arrested, 10 of the 13 youth members of
Burma's main opposition party – the National League for Democracy – were
released by junta authorities in Rangoon after being detained briefly on
Thursday.

On Thursday at least 13 youth members of the NLD were rounded up from
their respective homes and were detained by the Special Branch of the
Rangoon Police.

While Tun Zaw Zaw, in-charge of NLD youth Lower Burma, Khin Tun and a
youth in-charge from Rangoon's South Dagon suburb continued to be
detained, the other 10 were released the same day, a senior member of the
NLD said.

The NLD youth members were interrogated separately. They were asked
whether they had plans to initiate any political activity during the visit
of the UN Secretary General. Finally, they were made to sign a pledge not
to speak to the media and released.

____________________________________

May 23, Irrawaddy
Authorities tighten restrictions on private aid efforts - Min Lwin

Private aid convoys from Rangoon, which have provided a lifeline to
victims of Cyclone Nargis in some hard-hit areas of the Irrawaddy delta,
are facing tighter restrictions by local authorities, who say that the
government now has the situation under control.

At a checkpoint near the Panhlaing Bridge in Rangoon’s Hlaing Tharyar
Township, trucks and other vehicles carrying supplies to the delta are
being stopped and inspected, according to local nongovernmental
organizations and other private donors.

“The security officers told me not to distribute things along the road and
gave me a pamphlet,” said a relief worker who passed through the
checkpoint, where guards recorded license plate numbers of vehicles
traveling to Kungyangone and Twante Townships located in the Irrawaddy
delta.

According to the relief worker, the pamphlet claimed that the government
had completed its emergency operations in the area, and was now
undertaking efforts to rehabilitate the local population. It added that
private donations were disrupting these efforts, as they made people in
the area less willing to work.

Relief workers who have visited some of the hardest-hit areas deny that
the government’s efforts have been effective in dealing with the crisis,
which they say remains far from over.

Meanwhile, private donations—of money, food, water, clothing and other
basic necessities—continue to be collected throughout the country.

Much of this informal aid effort is being handled by Buddhist monks, who
are overseeing the distribution of scarce resources to cyclone survivors
in areas that have seen little assistance from the government.

“I am afraid that the victims won’t receive the assistance,” said one
donor, explaining why he declined to make donations through the
government.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

May 23, Irrawaddy
Humanitarian aid also needed for Thai border refugees - Violet Cho

While international aid donors and Western governments are lining up to
provide humanitarian assistance to the victims of Cyclone Nargis, more
than 140,000 refugees and displaced persons from Burma’s ongoing armed
conflicts are facing a drastic cut in aid.

Thailand Burma Border Consortium, an umbrella organization that provides
assistance to more than 140,000 refugees from Burma residing in 10 refugee
camps along the Thai-Burmese border, has released an urgent letter of
appeal requesting US $6.8 million to maintain aid to the Burmese refugee
at minimum international standards.

Children at Mae La refugee camp on Thai-Burmese border. (Photo: www.cpi.org)
Sally Thompson, deputy director of TBBC, said that if they do not make up
the deficit, TBBC and the refugees would have to reconsider the system of
how assistance is being provided to the border.

“If we do not get a certain amount of dollars, we will have no choice but
to cut the ration, so we are only be able to provide about 1,100
kilocalories (kcals) per person per day from August,” she told The
Irrawaddy.

To date, TBBC has always provided food rations to the minimum
international standard of 2,100 kcals / person/ day.

According to TBBC statement, a cut in food rations would have a very
destabilizing affect on the camps, which would in turn affect all other
sectors—such as health and education—within a couple of months.

 “We could expect to see significant increases in malnutrition rates
amongst the vulnerable population and increasing health problems relating
to nutrition. The protective community structures afforded by the camps
would be undermined and refugees forced to supplement their food by
leaving the camps at considerable risk of abuse and exploitation,” the
statement said.

The shortfall in the TBBC’s budget came after a sharp increase in global
rice prices earlier this year, according to Thompson.

In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, with millions homeless and much of the
country’s agriculture inundated with seawater, TBBC said it harbors
considerable doubts about how quickly the economy in Burma can be
restored.

During these uncertain times TBBC said it feels that it is important to
maintain stability in the conflict-ridden border area. Allowing assistance
programs to collapse at this point would only add to the uncertainties and
human suffering.

“We are in a critical time because of the global food crisis and the
cyclone in Burma,” said Thompson. “It has brought many issues to a head at
the same time. We have to be flexible to deal with the emergency inside
the country; at the same time we have remain open to the fact that Burma
is still generating new arrivals of refugees.”

TBBC is a consortium of European and American aid groups—many of which are
Christian-based—which for more than two decades has been providing food,
shelter and non-food items to thousands of refugees and displaced people
living along the Thai-Burmese border.

____________________________________

May 23, Mizzima News
KNU vow to continue the fight, despite Chairman's death - Nay Thwin

Chiang Mai - Karen National Union, an ethnic armed rebel group, said there
will be no change in the group's policy despite the death of the top-most
leader on Thursday.

Pado Saw Ba Thin Sein chairman of the Karen National Union (KNU), an armed
resistant group, died on Thursday morning.

Pado Saw Ba Thin Sein (82), the KNU Chairman and Commander-in-Chief, died
at 2 a.m. on Thursday at his residence on the Thai-Burmese border. His
funeral will be held in a few days in the KNU controlled area. He is
survived by his wife, three daughters and a son.

While there will be slight changes in KNU's top hierarchy, as a result of
the demise of the Chairman, there will be no policy change, KNU's Joint
General Secretary Pado Saw David Tharkapaw said.

According to the KNU constitution, the Chairman's post will be
automatically filled by the current Vice-Chairman Pado Saw Tamala Baw.
This will be the second change in KNU's top hierarchy in three months.

After General Secretary Pado Man Shar was assassinated on February 14,
Maj. Tutu Lay took over and Saw David Tharkapaw became the Joint General
Secretary.

"KNU's line and policy will not change following the death of our leader.
The change in policy depends on the changing situations. As the SPDC's
stance remains unchanged, our policy won't change," Pado Saw David
Tharkapaw said.

However, he said while the KNU will adhere to its policy of resolving
political issues by peaceful political means, there will be some changes
in its political programmes.

"Previously we visited Rangoon, Moulmein for peace talks with the regime.
Now we will meet them only on foreign soil. We will not go to their
territory. They never come to our controlled area. We had been courting
high risk in their territory. They only want to exploit us. They never
listen to and comply with our demands of ceasing fire in our controlled
areas," he said.

The KNU, Burma's longest running insurgent group, last met the Burmese
military junta in 2004 in Moulmein town of Mon State for a peace
negotiation, which produced no result.

Pado Saw Ba Thin Sein succeeded KNU Chairman Gen. Saw Bo Mya at the 2004
KNU Congress. After the Chairman's post is occupied by the Vice-Chairman
automatically in keeping with the constitution, the vacant post of
Vice-Chairman will be filled following elections in the forthcoming 14th
Congress.

Pado Saw Ba Thin Sein joined the KNU during the historic Insein battle in
1949 and became General Secretary in 1983 and took over as the Chairman of
the group in 2004.

He served as Chairman of the Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC), an
umbrella group of ethnic political and armed resistant groups in exile,
and Chairman of the National Democratic Front (NDF), and the presidium
member of the 'National Council of the Union of Burma' (NCUB) until his
death.

The KNU suffered heavy lost earlier this year when it's general secretary
Pado Mann Shar was assassinated by unidentified gunmen at his residence at
the Thai-Burmese border town of Maesot.

Dr. Salai Lian Hmung Sakhong, ENC General Secretary expressed deep
grievance over the death of Pado Saw Ba Thin Sein saying it is a loss of a
great leader of the entire Burmese revolutionary movement.

"The leadership of Pado Saw Ba Thin Sein was crucial to our movement. But
this tragic loss of a great leader though is really a setback to our
cause, we will not cease our revolution. We will the struggle in lines and
policies that Pado Saw Ba Thin Sein has envisaged," Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong
said.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

May 23, The Times (UK)
Britain’s aid millions channelled through tycoon with ties to Burmese
junta - Kenneth Denby in Rangoon

A Burmese tycoon with links to the military regime is being used as a
conduit to channel humanitarian aid — funded by British taxpayers and
private donors — to the victims of Cyclone Nargis.

In an effort to overcome the restrictions imposed on foreign aid workers
by the junta, the British Department for International Development (DfID)
and the charity Save the Children are working with Serge Pun, a
millionaire banker, golf-course owner and construction boss, to run
supplies down to the remotest and hardest-hit areas of the Irrawaddy
delta.

Mr Pun’s association with both the British Government and one of its
biggest and best-loved charities illustrates the compromises and paradoxes
being forced upon aid donors by the crisis. By Burmese standards he is a
reputable businessman, but aid workers acknowledge privately that he is
not the kind of figure with whom they would associate in normal
circumstances.

Mr Pun maintains good relations with the Burmese dictatorship, has
socialised with its leaders and is a donor to state-run charities.

In bringing relief to devastated areas of the Irrawaddy delta, he is
working closely with less savoury businessmen, including Kyaw Win, a
regime crony who is banned from entering and doing business in Europe
because of his intimate links with the Burmese generals.

Without Mr Pun’s help, however, the whole process of bringing aid into
Burma would be much more difficult, from clearing the bureaucracy at the
airport to identifying needy people and transporting supplies downriver.

“This is a fascinating situation and it’s taken us into areas we’re not
used to dealing with, but I don’t feel compromised by co-ordinating with
Mr Pun,” said Andrew Kirkwood, country director for Save the Children in
Rangoon. “He genuinely wants to help and he is looking for ways to do
that. The Government feels more comfortable working with organisations
they know, and these [businessmen] are the people they know the best.”

Mark Farmaner, of the UK Burma Campaign, criticised the collaboration.
“We’re very uncomfortable,” he said. “He’s clearly a regime crony and we
believe that the regime want to use the cyclone to break down restrictions
on dealing with them and their cronies. This is a slippery slope to
humanitarian aid being compromised.”

The Burmese Government escorted Ban Ki Moon, the United Nations
Secretary-General, to carefully selected areas of the Irrawaddy delta
yesterday, and today he will meet the country’s leader, Than Shwe, in an
effort to persuade the junta to open the disaster area up to foreign aid
workers. Until now, aid groups have had the choice of either giving their
aid directly to the Government or attempting to distribute it themselves
with inadequate numbers of local Burmese staff.

The Burmese Government’s efforts in the area have been patchy at best,
with none of the large-scale military deployments that the Chinese
Government, for example, has carried out to deal with the Sichuan
earthquake. Countless private individuals, Buddhist monasteries and social
activists have travelled to the delta to give aid, but have often
encountered obstruction from the Government.

Yesterday, Burmese exile radio reported that six activists and eleven
members of the opposition National League for Democracy were arrested in
Rangoon after returning from relief work in the delta.

The junta has subcontracted much of the responsibility for providing aid
to favoured businessmen. They include notorious tycoons, such as Tay Za, a
close friend of Than Shwe, and reputedly the lover of one of his
daughters, and Steven Law, owner of the country’s biggest conglomerate and
son of a warlord and drug dealer.

By comparison with them, Mr Pun is, in the words of the Burmese opposition
magazine The Irrawaddy, “among Burma’s most professional and least corrupt
business leaders”. He owns companies operating in financial services,
property, car manufacturing, and construction.

Since Cyclone Nargis struck, he has dispatched doctors to the delta, and
plans to set 1,000 of his staff working in full-time relief for a year or
more. “We’ve basically gutted our company to focus totally on this
disaster,” says Mark Tippetts, a spokesman for Mr Pun, an ethnic Chinese
who also goes by the Burmese name Theim Wai.

According to Mr Kirkwood, Save the Children declined the offer from Mr Pun
of a donation of $100,000 (£50,000), but accepted practical help.

An online newsletter put out by Mr Pun in the name of the Cape Negrais
Committee carries photographs of his employees unloading British aid
alongside staff of both Save the Children and the DfID. It lists the
plastic sheets, cooking utensils, and hygiene kits blankets that Save the
Children has entrusted to it, as well as 14 metal river boats given to the
British charity by the DfID. Both the DfID and Save the Children say that
this is misleading, and that all the aid entrusted to Mr Pun’s employees
has also been accompanied by Save the Children staff.

A DfID spokesman said: “In testing circumstances such as Burma, we have to
be prepared to do what works to get aid to the people. DfID has no direct
relationship with Serge Pun.”

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

May 23, Associated Press
UN and Burma: A history of suspicion and failure - Denis D. Gray

The last time a UN secretary-general arrived in Burma he ignited bloody
riots in the streets—even though he was dead.

The clashes in 1974 between students who welcomed home the body of
Burma-born U Thant as a national hero and soldiers of a government leery
of the United Nations are part of the long history of tensions between
Burma and the world body.

That history, rife with suspicions and failures, forms the backdrop as
current UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, visits on a trip aimed at opening the
country to more international aid for its cyclone survivors.

Trying to take a lead role, the United Nations has repeatedly announced
"breakthroughs" in its efforts to restore democracy in Burma, improve
human rights and free detained Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

The isolationist generals, in turn, have enticed the UN's procession of
special envoys with vague promises, then slammed the door behind them and
continued marching to their own tune. Suu Kyi is still under house arrest
and political prisoners languish in jails.

The last envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, remains the butt of jokes among many in
Burma, after his futile attempts to revive a moribund dialogue between Suu
Kyi and the generals late last year.

Ban arrived in Burma Thursday hoping to persuade the ruling junta—deeply
suspicious of all outsiders—to allow the international community greater
access to hundreds of thousands of victims of a cyclone increasingly at
risk from disease and starvation.

The UN's mission this time may be humanitarian, but the military men have
always viewed relations with the world through a dark, political prism.
Ban's effort, therefore, may yield limited results.

"I hold serious doubts that any demonstrable, long term benefits will flow
to the Burmese people from the secretary-general's visit except that
Burmese people are delighted with the international awareness of their
plight," says Monique Skidmore, a Burma expert at Australian National
University.

Some Burmese people shared that pessimism.

"What can he do? He can't do anything. People are hopeful of course. Then
all hope crashes when he leaves. The generals don't care what the UN
says," said Khyaw Htun Htun, a businessman donating food to victims at a
monastery in Rangoon, Burma's largest city. Others interviewed had similar
comments.

UN agencies have in the past few years been able to bolster aid to the
impoverished Southeast Asian country and gain some measure of trust at the
local level. A basic humanitarian infrastructure built by the UN was able
to go into action when the Cyclone Nargis struck May 2-3 despite obstacles
thrown up by the regime.

But the nation's rulers view the United Nations as having shed its
neutrality and now marshaled against them through the lobbying efforts of
the United States and other powerful Western nations.

"The generals think the UN is deeper in the US pocket than ever before.
They are fearful that UN aid agencies are there in camouflage for the
regime-change agenda," says Thant Myint-U, a former UN official and
grandson of U Thant, the ex-secretary general whose international and
domestic popularity aroused jealousy in then-dictator Ne Win.

Ne Win's refusal for a state funeral when U Thant's body arrived in Burma
in 1974 sparked angry students to snatch the coffin. In an ensuing
confrontation with troops a still unknown number of protesters were gunned
down.

The regime now sees only few friends in the world body, notably Security
Council members China and Russia which frequently block resolutions
inimical to the regime.

"The UN has been so locked into this political change that it doesn't have
a more general relationship with the government which could have been so
valuable at a time like this," says Thant Myint-U.

On the eve of Ban's arrival, Burma shunned a US proposal for naval ships
to deliver aid to cyclone victims, according to state-controlled media,
which cited fears of an American invasion aimed at grabbing the country's
oil reserves.

Skidmore said the generals might make use of Ban's visit to repair Burma's
battered image, repeating what she says are the many "cycles of
engagement"—promises made by the junta while Burma is in the international
spotlight, then broken or ignored when that spotlight fades.

David Steinberg, a veteran Burma watcher from Georgetown University, says
the junta will likely play up Ban's presence as evidence of their
international and domestic legitimacy. And Steinberg said it was important
to massage the generals' egos.

"We have to work out a deal with them where they perceive that we are
giving them some dignity and at the same time, we're achieving our
critical objectives," Steinberg said.

The generals, he said, would insist on remaining at least nominally in
control of the aid operations, though in practice, they might allow
international aid groups to take the lead on the ground.

"They can just allow the UN to do things without having to admit to it,"
he said. "You're not going to get the Burmese to say 'okay, UN you take
over, this is your deal, and we'll just sit back."

____________________________________

May 23, Irrawaddy
Suu Kyi must be freed, say US lawyers - Saw Yan Naing

The Burmese junta is being urged to free pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi when her current term of house arrest expires on May 25.

Two US lawyers speaking for the human rights organization Freedom Now said
in Washington DC on Friday that Burmese law required her release from
midnight on May 24.

Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), agreed. NLD
spokesman Nyan Win said the government would be acting illegally if it
continued to detain her under house arrest. “Under the law, she should not
be detained any longer,” he said.

Two lawyers speaking for Freedom Now said in a statement: “Under Burmese
law, she must be released from house arrest in Rangoon at midnight, the
beginning of Sunday May 25, 2008.”

One of the lawyers, Jared Genser, president of Freedom Now, said if Suu
Kyi were released she could then attend the international aid pledging
conference in Rangoon on May 25.

The May 25 conference will be attended by international donors,
representatives of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Asean and
the UN to discuss aid for the cyclone victims.

Freedom Now is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that works to free
prisoners of conscience worldwide through legal, political, and public
relations advocacy efforts. It also works closely with human rights
organizations and lawyers.

Genser said if junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe refused to free Su Kyi it
would be “a slap in the face to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the
Asean diplomats who will be on hand to hear the junta’s request for $11
billion of international assistance.”

The Freedom Now statement, also signed by lawyer Meghan Barron, pointed
out that under Article 10 (b) of Burma’s State Protection Law 1975, a
person who is deemed a “threat to the sovereignty and security of the
State and the peace of the people” may be detained for up to five years
through a restrictive order, renewable one year at a time.

Initially detained after the Depayin massacre in May 2003, Aung San Suu
Kyi’s house arrest was last extended on May 25, 2007. Thus, her fifth and
final year of house arrest allowable under Burmese law will expire at the
end of the day on May 24, 2008.

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent more than 12 of the last 18 years under house
arrest after her party won the 1990 state parliamentary election in Burma
with more than 80 percent of the votes cast. She has been confined to her
home continuously since May 2003.

____________________________________

May 23, Washington Post
Burmese aid request stirs concerns - Glenn Kessler

Burma's military junta is seeking up to $11.7 billion in reconstruction
aid at a donor conference scheduled this weekend in Rangoon, the former
Burmese capital, raising fears among human rights activists and Western
governments that Tropical Cyclone Nargis could become a diplomatic and
financial windfall for the reclusive regime.

Burma has a gross domestic product of only about $15 billion, and Burmese
officials have not indicated how they reached their damage assessment when
as many as three-quarters of the 2.5 million victims of the May 2-3
cyclone have not yet received assistance.

But the nation of about 55 million people is rich in natural resources,
with major Asian regional players such as China, Japan, India and Thailand
long battling for access and influence. Meanwhile, international financial
institutions such as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank --
which have not made loans to Burma for decades -- issued statements this
week suggesting reconstruction aid could once again flow to Burma, also
known as Myanmar.

The conference, organized by the United Nations and the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations, will be held Sunday, the day the house arrest of
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi expires. The military, which
refused to recognize the landslide victory of her party in 1990, is
expected to renew her detention, as it has annually for the past five
years.

"The junta has skillfully used ASEAN and the U.N. to set up a bidding war
among the major powers that compete with each other," said Michael Green,
President Bush's senior director for Asia affairs on the National Security
Council until 2006. The weekend conference could prove "a real turning
point," he said.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband acknowledged the risks in an
interview this week. "We are not going to allow this to become a ramp by
which the regime resuscitates or reinforces its political position," he
said.

Burma's financial situation is remarkably opaque. Though much of the
country is desperately poor, the military junta has enriched itself with
revenue from natural gas fields that bring in about $2 billion a year,
boosting the country's reserves to $3.5 billion, experts said.
The Burmese government last week assigned 43 companies -- many with close
ties to the military -- to receive lucrative reconstruction contracts,
according to a report in Irrawaddy, a Thai magazine that focuses on Burma.

Sean Turnell, a professor at Macquarie University in Australia and a
specialist on Burma's economy, said the government exploits the tremendous
gap between the official and unofficial exchange rates to hide the $200
million a month in revenue it receives from the gas fields. He estimated
that the cyclone actually caused about $3 billion in damage, or about 20
percent of GDP, far below the government's estimate.

"But Burma doesn't need money, it does not need cash. What it needs is the
very thing it is refusing: expertise," Turnell said. "If the regime had
the will to reconstruct the delta, it has the cash."

The Bush administration, which is sending its senior diplomat based in
Burma to the conference, has been pressing allies to come together first
to persuade the government to allow humanitarian relief to flow freely to
affected areas. The United States has provided $20.4 million in aid,
according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Including the U.S. portion, a U.N. emergency appeal has raised $110
million in contributions and an additional $110 million in uncommitted
pledges.

"Our position is very clear: We think this is a natural disaster which
still is in the humanitarian-response phase and is not yet in the
reconstruction phase," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, adding
that administration officials have reached out to Britain, France, Japan
and other allies to make that case.

Green said Japan's government is split between officials who want to make
a substantial pledge and those who urge caution because of Burma's
horrific human rights record. "The Japanese may see an opening to make a
big play in Burma" now that China, its traditional rival, is distracted by
its own humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake, he
said.

Japan plans to send a senior political appointee, probably a vice
minister, to the conference, a Japanese Embassy official said yesterday,
adding that "our utmost priority" is the implementation of $10 million in
emergency humanitarian and rescue assistance Japan has already pledged.

Among European and U.S. officials, there is growing opposition to any
World Bank participation in Burmese reconstruction projects, diplomatic
sources said. While the bank has not provided direct financial assistance
to Burma since 1987, it has provided grants to countries such as Haiti and
Liberia that were in arrears. A senior World Bank official said yesterday
the Burmese government must first work closely with international donors
to produce an acceptable recovery plan.

"For all the international community -- including the bank -- providing
assistance for longer-term recovery would need the government to work
alongside international partners, led by ASEAN, to get in place a full
assessment of the damage and losses and a recovery plan which focuses on
getting aid to people in need and demonstrating that the aid is well
used,"
Sarah Cliffe, the World Bank's director of operations and strategy for
East Asia and the Pacific, said in an interview.

The Asian Development Bank, of which Japan is the biggest shareholder,
said Wednesday that "additional assistance measures may be considered"
after a reconstruction assessment. Some experts believe the aid could be
funneled through an existing program to promote development in Southeast
Asia's Greater Mekong region.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR2008052204

____________________________________

May 23, Los Angeles Times
Hollywood celebrities urge human rights in Myanmar - Richard C. Paddock

Stars including Will Ferrell and Jennifer Aniston call for release of the
Southeast Asian country's Nobel-winning Aung San Suu Kyi and establishment
of democracy there.


Dozens of Hollywood celebrities have joined together to call attention to
the repressive military regime in Myanmar and the plight of Nobel Peace
Prize winner
Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent more than a decade under house arrest.

In more than 30 public-service spots that are being released online daily
this month, actors and artists including Will Ferrell, Sarah Silverman,
Ellen Page and Sylvester Stallone call for Suu Kyi's release and the
establishment of democracy in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

"A human rights crisis is happening right now in the Southeast Asian
country of Burma," Ferrell says in the first of the series. "Every now and
again a single person or event captures the imagination and inspiration of
the world. This moment belongs to Burma and to Aung San Suu Kyi."

Myanmar has been ruled by military regimes for nearly all of the past 46
years. Suu Kyi's political party won a landslide victory in a 1990
election and she was slated to become the country's next leader, but the
regime threw out the results and arrested her. Suu Kyi, who will turn 63
next month, is the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Most recently, the reclusive regime has come under harsh international
criticism for refusing to accept foreign aid for victims of Cyclone
Nargis, which killed at least 78,000 earlier this month and left hundreds
of thousands more without adequate food, water or shelter.

The Web-based celebrity campaign, called "Burma: It Can't Wait," began May
1 but has been overshadowed by the cyclone, which struck Myanmar two days
later. Organizers hope to raise Myanmar's profile in the same way that
activists have put Chinese control of Tibet and the Darfur genocide on the
map.

Another goal of the project is to sign up a million new members for the
U.S. Campaign for Burma, a Washington-based organization that promotes
democratic change in Myanmar.

The videos can be found at uscampaignforburma.org.

Some of the spots are sketches that try to draw attention to the troubled
nation by injecting humor, such as one featuring Jennifer Aniston and a
recalcitrant Woody Harrelson, who refuses to leave his
trailer. "I'm not coming out until Burma is free," he shouts.

Others are serious, such as one directed by Anjelica Huston in which
comedian Eddie Izzard praises the young people of Myanmar who led protests
against the regime last year. "We must use our freedom to help
them get theirs," he says.

Huston said in an interview that she took part in the project to highlight
the injustices of the regime. "I am particularly drawn to the idea of this
small, extraordinarily beautiful country that has been suppressed in this
terrible way for so long and the fact that the leader of the democratic
party has been shut up under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years,"
Huston said.

The campaign has attracted such celebrities as director Judd Apatow,
Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona, actor Joseph Fiennes, singer Sheryl
Crow, action star Steven Seagal, actress Felicity Huffman and producer
Norman Lear.

One 90-second video features Iranian artist Davood who is shown in
time-elapsed photography painting a portrait of Suu Kyi. Only at the end
does it become clear that she is wearing handcuffs.

In another, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" star Eric Szmanda and alumna
Jorja Fox play a card game called "Forced Labor," in which he holds the
cards of a
Burmese soldier and she is dealt the hand of a civilian, who suffers rape,
torture and murder.

"I don't think I like this game," Fox says.

"No one does," Szmanda replies.

Szmanda, who visited refugees along the Thai border and briefly crossed
into Myanmar last year, said he was stunned by the heart-wrenching
accounts of civilians who escaped the regime.

"Something came over me while I was there. I didn't feel a sense of pity,
I felt a sense of urgency," he said. "I had a chance to meet a lot of
former political prisoners who are now living on the border
of Thailand. It's unbelievable what some of them had to do endure for nine
or 10 years."

Actress Rosanna Arquette, who appears in a spot condemning the destruction
of 3,200 villages by the regime, said she was moved to participate in the
project because of the plight of Suu Kyi.

"She has done so much and she is still a prisoner," Arquette said in an
interview. "And the world doesn't really know. There are no Americans
there to help. It's really like a creepy secret."

Jack Healey, the former head of Amnesty International who helped raise
that group's profile through celebrity concerts, had a key role in
organizing the Burma project. He said one of his goals is to give Suu Kyi
the kind of profile that Nelson Mandela had while he was imprisoned in
South Africa.

"We want her to be the Mandela of her time," he said. "Maybe by the end we
will all know who she is."

Fanista, a new "social commerce" shopping website, underwrote and produced
many of the spots and offers customers a 10% rebate that they can donate
to the
U.S. Campaign for Burma.

In his spot, Stallone talks about his fourth "Rambo" movie, which was
released earlier this year and casts the Myanmar dictatorship as the
villain. The film depicts "atrocity de-mining," in which civilians are
forced to walk ahead of the army at gunpoint to uncover hidden land mines.
The regime banned the movie.

"While it is flattering to be part of a movie that is giving the Burmese
people hope and it is cool to say 'I'm banned in Burma,' these people need
real hope," \Stallone says in the 80-second spot. "Let's do something we
can be proud about."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/celebrity/la-et-myanmar23-2008may23,0,4404909.story

____________________________________

May 23, Irrawaddy
France to seek UN Resolution on Burma aid deliveries

France will push for a UN resolution authorizing the delivery of aid to
survivors of Cyclone Nargis in Burma "by all means necessary" if pressure
from the UN chief and the country's neighbors doesn't open the aid
pipeline quickly, France's UN ambassador said Thursday.

Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said France will wait to hear from
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN humanitarian chief John Holmes, who
are visiting Burma, and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, which is in charge of coordinating international aid, "to see if
there is some concrete improvement on the access to the victims."

"We don't see any improvement," except that for the first time the UN
World Food Program operated a small helicopter from Rangoon on Thursday,
he said.

Ban was scheduled to meet Friday with Burma's junta leader, Snr-Gen Than
Shwe, to press him to fully open up to international aid for 2.5 million
cyclone survivors. On Thursday, the UN chief witnessed some of the
devastation caused by the May 2-3 cyclone during a carefully choreographed
tour to the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta.

"The point now is to see if the pressure that is put by us, by the
countries who put pressure on them, by the secretary-general, by John
Holmes, by Asean countries, is going to be useful," Ripert told a group of
reporters.

"If not, we will have to go back to the Security Council," he said.

In an editorial in the French daily newspaper Le Monde published Monday,
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the Security Council can and
should force Burma to allow delivery of international aid. Otherwise, he
said, the council would be guilty of "cowardice."

Ripert said France's plan to go to the Security Council "if nothing moves
in the next few days" is receiving more support every day from concerned
governments.

"We should pass a resolution allowing to go directly to the population ...
to ask all the countries in the world and all the members states in a
position to do so to deliver aid by all means necessary—the humanitarian
aid—in cooperation with the Burmese authorities," he said.

In the Le Monde editorial, Kouchner said the Security Council "can decide
to intervene to force the passage of humanitarian aid," saying it did so
in the past in Kurdistan in Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda—and could do it again
with Burma.

____________________________________
INTERVIEWS

May 23, Democratic Voice of Burma
Actor says much more aid needed for cyclone victims

Prominent actor Kyaw Thu, head of the Free Funeral Service Society, said
domestic and international aid provision is still falling short of the
needs of cyclone victims in 20 townships and villages in Irrawaddy
division.

Kyaw Thu told DVB in an interview that his team had been providing the
survivors with rice, cooking oil, salt, onion and clothes but found that
their distribution “could not meet the actual needs of the victims”.

DVB: How did the cyclone victims react when assistance was given?

KT: They were very glad. They prayed for us. We were also very glad that
we were able to provide relief supplies to those who were in real trouble.

DVB: What is the situation like for children in the places where you have
been?

KT: We saw some children were having severe problems surviving as they no
longer have parents.

DVB: How are they surviving then? Who do they get help from?

KT: Some are at monasteries and schools by the arrangement of local
authorities while others are staying with their relatives or those they
are close to.

DVB: What do you think the worst problems are in the places you have been?

KT: I think health conditions. I am worried about it. I am being worried
that people will suffer from diarrhoea, dengue fever and malaria because
of unclean water and sanitation problems.

DVB: Have any other groups been to those places?

KT: Yes. There are others like us. Some are from companies and some are
private donors. We have seen them. We are just unhappy with the fact that
we couldn’t give the survivors as much as we wanted to donate.

DVB: What is the mental condition of the survivors?

KT: I don’t know how to describe their mental state. I think is pretty
bad. Obviously, our mental state was quite affected by seeing their
troubles.

DVB: What do you think should be done?

KT: I think it would be best if local and international experts could
cooperate to support the victims.

DVB: What difficulties did you encounter in aid distribution?

KT: We could only provide aid to people in places we could reach. There
are many places still inaccessible, such as places adjacent to the sea in
Kongyankone township. I think is best if we can find ways to help people
living in those remote areas.

DVB: Did you see any dead bodies in the places you have been?

KT: We saw many dead bodies. We couldn’t take care of them due to
transportation constraints although we did provide free funeral services.
It is more challenging to fulfil funeral functions in places located in or
by the water than it is on land.

DVB: You have gone from place to place to help the victims. Do you think
they will face difficulties surviving in the future?

KT: I think they will because we could only give them three pyi
(approximately 12 kg) of rice, salt and other supplies for each family. I
can’t imagine what they will be like after they have eaten the rice we
gave them. However, if they can receive aid on a regular basis their
situation will be better.

DVB: The school term is about to begin. What do you think of the schools
in places you have been?

KT: It is hard to even believe that there were villages in places we have
been because most of the houses and buildings were destroyed and so were
the schools. There were great losses in Rangoon so you can imagine how
badly those villages were affected by the storm. I don’t see any prospect
of children going to school this year.

DVB: Anything else you want to say?

KT: We are trying our best to help the cyclone victims while working on
the funeral service. At the moment, we have closed our clinic temporarily
because the clinic building is in bad shape and doctors are giving
treatment to people locally.

DVB: How can Burmese nationals overseas donate to the FFSS?

KT: They can call +95-1-560 333 or +95-1-578 184.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

May 23, Burma Campaign UK
Burma aid deal - hopeful But sceptical

The Burma Campaign UK today said it was hopeful but sceptical following
reports that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had secured agreement from
Burma's generals for aid workers to be allowed into the country.

"We'll believe it when we see the aid workers on the ground in the delta,"
said Zoya Phan, International Coordinator of the Burma Campaign UK. "The
generals have a long track record of lying to the UN. After the uprising
last year they lied about how many they killed, lied about stopping
arrests of activists, and lied about holding talks with Aung San Suu Kyi."

It is still unclear whether the agreement will give aid workers genuine
free and unfettered access to the delta region. Early indications are that
the regime will still have to authorise where aid workers go and what work
they do. This could cause delays and obstructions.

Nor is it clear how aid workers will be able to travel in the delta,
significant parts of which are still flooded. Large numbers of helicopters
will be needed, and these will have to be provided by foreign countries
and they’ll need people to fly them. Practically this is likely to be
foreign military personnel. If this is not included in the agreement then
aid workers will still not be able to access all areas, even if they have
the regimes permission to do so.

“If the regime is genuine then we’ll know within 24 hours, as they’ll take
down the army checkpoints which are stopping Burmese and international aid
workers getting into the delta,” said Zoya Phan. “If the regime goes back
on its word again then there must be no more delay. The USA, UK and France
but go into the delta and deliver aid without the regimes permission.
Questions must also be asked about why it took Ban Ki-Moon more than two
weeks before he bothered to get on a plane and go to Burma to secure this
deal. Thousands will have died while he sat behind his desk in New York.”

For more information contact Zoya Phan on 07738630139.