BurmaNet News, June 7-9, 2008

[Editor]

June 7-9, 2008 Issue #3487


INSIDE BURMA
AP: UN aid helicopters reach isolated survivors 5 weeks after Myanmar cyclone
AP: Red Cross: Myanmar dead may never be identified
Christian Science Monitor: In Burma (Myanmar), how many cyclone orphans?
Irrawaddy: Foreign media ‘more destructive than Nargis’: junta
Irrawaddy: 1,000 Karen villagers flee attacks
Irrawaddy: Police bar shops from selling tv satellite dishes

ON THE BORDER
The Nation (Thailand): Burmese junta detains cyclone-affected "boat people"
Zee News: ULFA using dollars to buy arms in Myanmar: Arm

BUSINESS / TRADE
AP: Burma group denies rumors of fish eating corpses

HEALTH / AIDS
Xinhua: Myanmar gives polio vaccination to under-five cyclone-survived
children

REGIONAL
Mizzima News: Dalai Lama donates for Burma's cyclone victims
SHAN: Air Mandalay stops Thailand flights

INTERNATIONAL
AP: UN expert concerned about Myanmar comedian's arrest
The Australian: Defector tells of Burmese atrocity

OPINION / OTHER
IPS: Burma: Crime for civil society to provide relief?
The Cutting Edge: Cyclonic Orwellian drama still plays out in ravaged Burma




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 9, Associated Press
UN aid helicopters reach isolated survivors 5 weeks after Myanmar cyclone

U.N. helicopters reached some Myanmar storm survivors on Monday with aid
for the first time since deadly Cyclone Nargis devastated parts of the
country more than a month ago.

Some survivors went weeks without adequate assistance before four
helicopters arrived over the weekend and began shuttling emergency
supplies such as rice and water purification systems to villages around
the hardest-hit towns of Bogale and Labutta, said U.N. World Food Program
spokesman Paul Risley.

Four relief drops were conducted Monday in seven places in the battered
Irrawaddy delta, and six more locations were expected to be reached
Tuesday, Risley said. The U.N. had only one helicopter operating in
Myanmar that flew a total of six trips last week.

"Today was the first day where you really saw a multiplier effect," Risley
said Monday. "These are areas that clearly have not received regular
supplies of food or other relief assistance."

The United Nations estimated that 2.4 million people were affected by
Cyclone Nargis, which hit the delta on May 2-3. The U.N. warned that more
than 1 million of those people still need help, mostly in the
hard-to-reach Irrawaddy delta. The cyclone killed more than 78,000 people
in the impoverished country.

Helicopters are critical to reaching isolated areas. Supplies have mainly
been delivered by boats that took several hours to navigate short
distances in the delta's network of waterways.

Four more U.N.-chartered helicopters in nearby Bangkok, Thailand were
expected to fly to Myanmar this week.

The relief effort, however, still faces myriad problems, including a
severe shortage of housing materials that could leave hundreds of
thousands of survivors exposed to heavy rains as the monsoon season
begins, aid agencies say.

"There's clearly a need for tarps and other roofing material, for anything
that can help them rebuild their houses," Risley said, noting monsoon
rains have left many delta villages knee-deep in mud.

U.N. officials and aid groups have criticized Myanmar's military regime
for restricting access to the delta, saying the junta has prevented enough
food, water and shelter from reaching desperate survivors.

Foreign relief workers still face hindrances in reaching cyclone victims,
especially outside of Yangon, aid groups have said.

Myanmar's ruling generals have been criticized abroad for allegedly
evicting cyclone survivors from refugee camps, supposedly without adequate
provisions to survive elsewhere. The government has been sensitive to such
criticism, issuing angry denials in state-run media that describe the
accusations as lies meant to undermine the country's stability.

On Monday, all three state-run newspapers carried bold-type slogans that
urged the people of Myanmar to rally behind the government's side of the
story and not trust what foreign news agencies were reporting.

Anti-government elements are feeding "the foreign news agencies stories
about relief and rehabilitation that they have made up and shot on video,"
all three newspapers reported.

"Storm victims are hereby warned to remain vigilant with nationalistic
spirit," the newspapers said.

____________________________________

June 9, Associated Press
Red Cross: Myanmar dead may never be identified

Tens of thousands of people killed in last month's cyclone may never be
identified because their bodies have decomposed so badly and many ended up
far from home, an aid organization said Sunday.

The task of burying an estimated 78,000 bodies has been overshadowed by
efforts to assist Cyclone Nargis' 2.4 million survivors, many of whom are
still without adequate food, water and shelter, the International
Committee of the Red Cross said.

As a result, bloated bodies still litter the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta more
than five weeks after the storm, while other bodies have been dumped in
canals or unmarked mass graves.

"Many now are in advanced stages of decay and the information we have been
able to gather is that many of the bodies that were effected by the tidal
surges were stripped of clothing and any identifying items," said Craig
Strathern, a Red Cross spokesman in Myanmar.

The Red Cross has received reports that some bodies ended more than four
miles from their place of origin, he said.

The organization last week began distributing kits to volunteers that
include body bags, forms to list where a body is buried and any details
identifying it, Strathern said. But he said he doubted there would be any
large-scale effort to identify victims, mostly because Myanmar law allows
families to declare someone dead after three weeks.

"We're certainly not aware of any initiatives that try to achieve positive
identification of bodies," Strathern said. "I don't know what the reason
would be. If there is not a demand from the families or legal imperative
in the system, it's not going to achieve too much."

Survivors in the delta said they tried to identify bodies but were
overwhelmed by the numbers of dead clogging rivers and washing up on
beaches.

"Initially, the bodies were identified by relatives and we cremated them
after holding religious rights," said Myint Thuang, a survivor from the
delta town of Bogalay. "However, after more bodies washed up on the shore
and with no one to identify them we buried them in mass graves."

Villagers sprinkled lime powder on the graves of 10 or more bodies and
marked some with a wooden stick, he said.

The situation differs greatly from the tsunami that killed nearly 230,000
people in 2004. In worst-hit Banda Aceh, Indonesia, collecting and
identifying bodies were top priorities, driven largely by Muslim tradition
that calls for burying the dead within the first day. Corpses were dumped
in mass graves as large as football fields, with aid workers, soldiers and
volunteers working together to mark the graves and identity the dead.

With only six U.N. helicopters and seven from the Myanmar government,
relief supplies for survivors are mostly being transported along dirt
roads and then by boat. International aid agencies say boats able to
navigate the delta's canals are scarce and efforts to import vehicles have
been hampered by government red tape.

The government has dismissed complaints that survivors are not being
reached with aid and reports that they have been forced from camps and
dumped near their devastated villages. It said survivors have a choice to
remain in the camps or return home with government help.

"It is a storm of rumors designed to deal a devastating blow to our
country," according to a commentary Saturday in the New Light of Myanmar.

"The rumors are invented and circulated by certain Western countries and
internal and external ax-handlers," it said. "In other words, it is just a
scheme conspired by a crafty tiger that is desperate to eat the flesh and
the fox that is waiting for leftovers."

The paper cited Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein saying the government was
prepared to help people settle either in their native areas, or in the
places where they took refuge in relief camps.

Myanmar's ruling military junta has been criticized abroad for allegedly
evicting cyclone survivors from refugee camps, supposedly without adequate
provisions to survive elsewhere. The government has been sensitive about
such criticism, describing it as lies meant to undermine the country's
stability.

Thein Sein was making an inspection trip to the Irrawaddy delta area
Saturday when he said the government would provide temporary shelters at
first, to be followed by permanent housing, the newspaper reported.

____________________________________

June 9, Christian Science Monitor
In Burma (Myanmar), how many cyclone orphans?

Aid groups are trying to curb child labor and reconnect families – without
the help of surnames.

Rangoon, Burma - Like thousands of orphans, Jo Jo was fit enough to
survive last month's cyclone Nargis.

Sheltered now by church members in Rangoon, the main city in Burma
(Myanmar), he faces more challenges: finding his parents even though, like
most Burmese, he has no surname; and surviving in a society where children
are widely considered a source of cheap labor.

"The price of everything these days is rising, except one thing – the
price of life," says a Burmese celebrity who has been quietly bringing aid
to villages in the delta. "Cheapest of all is the cost of children."

In a working-class area of central Rangoon, children pump gas, fix
generators, sell fruit, serve tea, cook food, clean monasteries.

Across the country, kids steer coconut boats loaded with contraband or
fight in ethnic wars in the jungle. Most have at most four years of
schooling. Almost every mom-and-pop business employs children for less
than a dollar a day.

While some seem happy to be working with parents or relatives, many have
been bought and sold.

"Trafficking has always been big in this region. That needs to be
addressed very quickly," says Marvin Parvez, a development activist who
has been working with several aid agencies in Burma. "Delta children were
the poorest of the poor to begin with. They had food shortages in the
delta area before the cyclone. The cyclone put them back at least one
century."

"Families are desperate now, so sometimes they sacrifice their daughters
or sons. Children are very vulnerable at this time," he continues.

Many hurdles in reuniting families

Many agree that after most disasters, the best way to protect children is
to reconnect them with their families or villages. But finding out who
children belong to is difficult in a society that doesn't use surnames.

Instead of passing ancestral lineage down through family names, Burmese
parents typically give their children a combination of names, such as
Aung, Win, and Tin, which give no indication of who is their father or
mother. Many Burmese also go by nicknames.
"We are taking down names of parents and children. But without surnames,
it's going to be difficult," says Steve Goudswaard, the first foreign
relief expert from World Vision allowed into southern Burma's Irrawaddy
Delta, where the cyclone hit hardest.

Many children, especially younger ones who lost everything, including
identity cards, may be unable to recall the name of their village or find
it on a map. The cyclone, which left 134,000 dead or missing and another
2.4 million affected, also erased many villages completely, obliterating
schools and homes, and even shifting earth or scrubbing away topographical
landmarks such as trees or patterns of farmland.

Unable to retrace their steps home, many survivors have drifted between
makeshift camps and temples. Many children sit with vacant expressions, in
shock and grief.

The number of displaced children is hard to estimate. Forty percent of
people in the delta before the cyclone were under 18, according to Save
the Children. UNICEF says 1.1 million children were attending 4,000
schools that were damaged or destroyed.

UNICEF says that at least 2,000 are orphans or are missing parents, but
many Burmese say the number is much higher, because delta families were
known for having many children. Some say there are 5,000 orphans in the
delta town of Labutta alone.

Returning kids to school, and routine

Aid agencies say Burma's military government has been closing refugee
camps in towns and sending survivors back to their villages – a move the
junta denies.

Officials say they are working on a voluntary resettlement program that
will allow parents to find their children, rebuild their homes, and get
children into classes as soon as possible, to keep up with students
nationwide who began the school year on June 2.

Andrew Kirkwood, country director for Save the Children, says he supports
the government's push to get kids in school: "If kids get into school, it
creates a routine. It's easier to identify which kids are traumatized or
malnourished."

To fill the gap before schools are ready, UNICEF has opened 80
"child-friendly spaces" in the delta, where kids in groups of 50 to 350
can sing, play, read, and enjoy one another's company. It has also
provided learning packages, textbooks, kits for affected schools, and
roofing sheets and construction kits to repair them.

With thousands of people cast adrift, Burmese relief volunteers say they
hope their government, as well as the United Nations and nongovernmental
organizations, will at least protect orphans from child traffickers and
even citizens hoping to adopt them.

"Many people come and ask to adopt these children, but we don't allow them
to," says a Burmese woman, who works in child-protection programs for the
UN and other groups. "The [children] need to remain with their families."

Some people "say they want to adopt children to take care of them, but
they have other reasons," she continues. "It's very important to protect
these children."

____________________________________

June 9, Irrawaddy
Foreign media ‘more destructive than Nargis’: junta – Saw Yan Naing

Writing for the Burmese regime’s two most popular daily newspapers The New
Light of Myanmar and Myanma Alin on Sunday, pro-junta writer Ngar Min Swe
claimed foreign news organizations and radio stations—including Burmese
media abroad—are “more destructive than Nargis.”

The article continued: “Some foreign broadcasting stations are making
attempts to undermine national unity under the pretext of Nargis. Such
groundless news stories are designed to undermine the trust of donor
countries and organizations in Burma and the Burmese people.”

The writer said that reports by foreign news agencies regarding corruption
over international aid were wrong and that the foreign media intended to
break the trust and create misunderstanding between international donors
and the government.

“They have come to destroy the generosity of the donors and the
organizations,” he said.

The article also accused a particular citizen of Burma of giving
interviews to foreign radio stations saying that the interviewee was a
“contributor” for the radio stations and had told lies about the military
government.

The article went on to criticize one of the anonymous interviewee’s
comments—that cyclone victims would have to eat dead bodies if they didn’t
receive chocolate and biscuits from international donors.

However, the reporter applauded another writer, Hlaing Aung, who had
suggested in an earlier article in state-run media that cyclone victims in
the Irrawaddy delta and Rangoon Division could survive without
international aid, such as chocolate bars, by consuming natural resources
like vegetables, fish and frogs.

Ngar Min Swe said, “I’m a fish and prawn breeder, so I have some knowledge
of fish and prawns. In Burma, the month of May is a period when female
fish find suitable places for laying their eggs. This year, no one was in
a position to catch pregnant fish. Even a spawning fish, prawn or crab can
give birth to millions of [offspring]. Food is more plentiful for them in
their pastures this year than previous years.”

The author is believed to be referring to human corpses and animal
carcasses as “food” for the fish.

Ngar Min Swe also said Burmese people had achieved their constitutional
referendum despite being attacked by foreign radio stations.

However, a local resident in Rangoon who was working with monks to help
cyclone survivors dismissed the article. “We are the ones who are helping
people and collecting information from them,” he said. “Therefore, we are
more credible. As for the government—they usually write those kinds of
reports.”
____________________________________

June 9, Irrawaddy
1,000 Karen villagers flee attacks – Saw Yan Naing

More than 1,000 people from Papun District in eastern Burma have fled
their villages and taken refuge in the jungle after a series of attacks
and acts of physical violence by the Burmese army, according to relief
groups in Karen state.

According to the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), a relief team that works with
Internally Displaced People in eastern Burma, troops from Infantry
Battalion 240 attacked Te Mu Der village on the morning of June 4, burning
rice barns, destroying homes and farms, and damaging a local church.

The villagers were forced to flee Te Mu Der and are now staying in
makeshift shacks in the surrounding jungle in fear of returning to their
homes, said the FBR report.

Other villages in Papun District in northern Karen state were also
attacked—including Tha Kaw To Baw and Tha Da Der, where an unknown number
of villagers were forced into hiding.

FBR reported that the military operations were launched by Burmese
Infantry Battalion 240, Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 429 and LIB 531.

According to the report—which could not be immediately verified by The
Irrawaddy due to a lack of communications in northern Karen State—LIB 429
and LIB 531 entered Bwa Doh village in Papun District and beat up and shot
at villagers. One man’s head was split open, although it was unclear
whether he survived. The Burmese soldiers fired mortars into Bwa Doh, than
burned down three barns containing rice, said FBR.

On May 27, more than 500 villagers from Mon Township in Karen State fled
into the jungle following attacks by the Burmese army, according to FBR.
The villagers are reportedly still hiding in the jungle.

FBR also reported that Burmese troops demanded a total of 2,150,000 kyat
(US $1,900) from five villages in Mon Township—Lay Tain Daw, Tee Dto Lo,
Aung Chan Tha, Paw Bpi Der and Myaung Oo.

The army apparently forced the villagers to pay money, saying it was a
contribution to the cyclone victims in Irrawaddy and Rangoon divisions.

FBR noted that since the monsoon rains started, conditions for living
rough in the jungle are even more miserable than usual.

Meanwhile, Saw Steve, a relief team leader for the Committee for
Internally Displaced Karen People, said, “The Burmese army has increased
its military operations in Papun District. They are burning down farms and
huts belonging to villagers.”

____________________________________

June 9, Irrawaddy
Police bar shops from selling tv satellite dishes – Violet Cho

In a new attempt to prevent television viewers watching broadcasts from
abroad, the authorities are now forbidding electronics shop owners from
selling satellite dishes and spare parts.

Satellite dishes are being seized in raids on shops and the owners are
being warned they face prosecution if caught selling them, according to
sources in Rangoon.

One TV mechanic, Ye Lwin, said raids had occurred in Rangoon last Friday.

A Rangoon journalist said some shops were circumventing the ban by selling
satellite dishes and equipment to trusted mechanics, who then dealt
directly with private households. The ban was also not being universally
applied in rural areas, where people were still able to buy satellite
spare parts from electronics shops.

Rangoon residents see the ban as a new attempt by the regime to prevent TV
viewers watching the news programs of such foreign stations as Aljazeera,
CNN and the BBC and, in particular, the Norway-based Democratic Voice of
Burma (DVB), which are only available via satellite.

In January this year, the regime ordered a massive hike in the annual
satellite television license fee in an attempt to deter people from
watching foreign news broadcasts.

Moe Aung Tin contributed to this report from Rangoon.


____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

June 9, The Nation (Thailand)
Burmese junta detains cyclone-affected "boat people"

The Burmese navy has arrested 65 people, including 15 children and 20
women, who attempted to flee the country's cyclone-hit Bogalay township, a
Burma pro-democracy group said on Sunday.

The boat-load of people were arrested on June 2 near Zardatgyi Island west
of Kawthaung town by Navy Ship No 517, according to the Network for
Democracy and Development (NDD) group, which is based on the Thai-Burma
border.

"They left Bogalay by boat on May 24 aiming to take refuge in refugee
camps at Thai border," the NDD said in a statement.

The 65 people had reportedly lost their belongings and homes in Cyclone
Nargis that hit Burma's central coastal region on May 2-3, leaving at
least 133,000 people dead or missing.

One month after the storm, unknown thousands have yet to receive emergency
aid, with many of them residing in remote coastal enclaves in the
Irrawaddy delta, according to international aid workers.

"This is the first-time we heard that the cyclone victims take risks to
leave their villages by boats like those from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
in the past," said the NDD.

Millions of so-called "boat people" fled Vietnam and Cambodia during after
1979, in the aftermath of a short Chinese invasion of Vietnam to teach
Hanoi a lesson for invading Cambodia the same year to topple the
pro-Beijing Khmer Rouge regime.

The resulting political turmoil prompted more than a million
Sino-Vietnamese to flee southern Vietnam on flimsy boats to Thailand and
other non-communist countries in South-east Asia, while a similar land and
sea exodus occurred in Cambodia of people seeking to flee Khmer Rouge
rule.

Burma, which has been under military dictatorships since 1962, has been
the source of constant outflow of political and economic refugees since
1988, when the army cracked down on a pro-democracy movement in a massacre
that claimed an estimated 3,000 lives and resulted in the imprisonment of
thousands.

More than 1 million Burmese currently work in neighbouring Thailand as
illegal or semi-illegal labourers, while hundreds of thousands reside in
temporary border camps awaiting resettlement or a return of stability to
their country.

Cyclone Nargis may now be prompting another exodus, as thousands go
without proper emergency assistance in the Irrawaddy delta, a situation
many blame of the government's reluctance to facilitate a full-fledged
international emergency assistance program in the storm-battered country.

"More victims will come out until and unless there is immediate and
effective rescue and relief program," said the NDD.

There are reports that at least 100 cyclone victims from the delta or
Rangoon have travelled to Mae Sot, a Thai border town, to seek assistance,
according to the Irrawaddy Magazine, a monthly published outside Myanmar
that monitored Myanmar-related issues.

____________________________________

June 9, Zee News
ULFA using dollars to buy arms in Myanmar: Arm

The banned ULFA was using money routed from Bangladesh to buy arms in
Myanmar and had stepped up its recruitment and extortion drive, army
sources claimed on Sunday.

Brigadier J Sahni of 2nd Mountain Division at Dinjan near here told
reporters here today that the army had recently seized one lakh American
dollars, routed from Bangladesh, from arrested ULFA militants with which
the outfit had planned to buy a consignment of arms routed to Myanmar from
China.

The army officer further said that the outfit had set up several camps in
the neighbouring state of Arunachal Pradesh following stepped up
operations in Upper Assam.

The outfit has also launched a massive recruitment and extortion drive to
strengthen themeselves following several reverses at the hands of the
army, he claimed.

"The ULFA in a bid to retaliate army operations is harassing the common
man by exploding bombs", he said.

Meanwhile, five ULFA militants were arrested today from Lakhimpur district
by the police, official sources said.

The militants were arrested from Durpang area under Nayanpura outpost of
Bihpuria police station and seized a motorbike and several documents from
their possession.

The arrested militants have been identified as Pallab Barua, Meen Saikia,
Amulya Saikia, Ajit Saikia and Ajit Khatoniar.


____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

Jun 9, Associated Press
Burma group denies rumors of fish eating corpses

A Burma government-affiliated group denied rumors that fish from
cyclone-ravaged areas were unfit to eat after supposedly feeding on human
and animals corpses, local media reported Monday.

Since Cyclone Nargis slammed into Burma's Irrawaddy delta last month, some
people in Rangoon — the country's biggest city — have been reluctant to
eat fish because of rumors they were feeding on the bodies of storm
victims. Burma also is known as Myanmar.
One rumor circulating was that some fish were found to have human fingers
and pieces of jewelry in their stomachs.

"This is not true. We can guarantee that," Toe Nandar Tin, an executive
member of the Burma Fisheries Federation, told the Myanmar Times
newspaper. "(It) is total nonsense. The freshwater fish from delta come
from fish farms, not from the rivers."

She said samples of fish were tested to prove they were safe for consumption.

Toe Nandar Tin said the rumors also resulted in the suspension of orders
by some foreign buyers, but she did not elaborate. The main buyers of
Burma's fish include China, Thailand and Singapore.

The Burma Fisheries Federation is an organization representing the private
sector, but it is affiliated with the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries.

About 55% of the fishing sector in the country was destroyed, including
2,000 small boats and 329 offshore fishing vessels, according to the
Times, a weekly English-language newspaper affiliated with the government.

Massive waves from the cyclone also devastated 37,000 acres of shrimp
farms and about 3,000 acres of fish farms, it said.

The cyclone killed more than 78,000 people and left another 56,000 missing
in the impoverished country.


____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

June 9, Xinhua
Myanmar gives polio vaccination to under-five cyclone-survived children

Myanmar has given polio vaccination to 540 cyclone-survived children under
five years of age in relief camps in Laputta, one of the disaster-hard-hit
townships in southwestern Ayeyawaddy delta, state media reported Monday.

Another 720 children ranging from 9 months to 10 years of age were also
given measles vaccination, said the New Light of Myanmar.

A total of 770 storm victims of Kanback native village have also moved
back from relief camps, the report added.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund, of the 2.4 million people
affected by the cyclone storm Nargis, 960,000 or 40 percent were estimated
to be children.

Meanwhile, nearly a dozen foreign medics have also been rendering medical
aid services in different cyclone-hit regions since mid-May.

Myanmar announced that the first phase of the country's post-disaster
restoration work -- rescue and relief, has finished up to a certain extent
and it has now entered into a second phase of resettlement and
reconstruction.

Under the post-disaster restoration plan, 30 Myanmar private companies
have been taking part in the restoration work in cyclone-hit regions with
assignments by the government to take the responsibility of undertaking
resettlement work in 17 affected townships.

Deadly tropical cyclone Nargis, which occurred over the Bay of Bengal, hit
five divisions and states -- Ayeyawaddy, Yangon, Bago, Mon and Kayin on
May 2 and 3, of which Ayeyawaddy and Yangon inflicted the heaviest
casualties and massive infrastructural damage.

Myanmar estimated the damages and losses caused by the storm at 10.67
billion U.S. dollars with 5.5 million people affected.

The storm has killed 77,738 people and left 55,917 missing and 19,359
injured according to official-released death toll.


____________________________________
REGIONAL

June 9, Mizzima News
Dalai Lama donates for Burma's cyclone victims

Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader His Highness the Dalai Lama on Monday
donated 500,000 Indian Rupees (USD 12,500) for relief and reconstruction
work for victims of Cyclone Nargis in Burma.

The Nobel Peace Laureate, Dalai Lama, has come forward to support the
people of Burma, who are now reeling under the impact of Nargis, said Dr.
Tint Swe, a minister in Burma's government in exile– the National
Coalition Government of Union of Burma (NCGUB), who received the donation.

"This is an encouragement for the people of Burma," said Dr. Tint Swe,
adding that the donation will be send to the All Burma Monks Alliance.

The donation by the Tibetan spiritual leader is the second since the
killer cyclone struck Burma's coastal region of Irrawaddy and Rangoon
division.

Immediately after the cyclone lashed Burma, Dalai Lama made a donation of
50,000 Indian rupees to help cyclone victims.

____________________________________

June 9, Shan Herald Agency for News
Air Mandalay stops Thailand flights – Hseng Khio Fah

Air Mandalay has temporarily stopped its Thailand flights due to fewer
passengers and tourists coming to Burma after Cyclone Nagis hit southern
Burma on 2-3 May, according to a regular traveler.

There used to be more than 60 passengers each flight from Chiang Mai or
Bangkok to Rangoon, but the number of passengers has significantly
dropped, sometimes to 5 or 6, said the source.

“Before, there were no less than 50 passengers. Today, we just have 23
people. I heard that they [Air Mandalay] will stop flights until the end
of August. This was the last flight,” said a passenger who flied from
Rangoon to Chiang Mai on 5 June.

A staff from Air Mandalay office in Chiang Mai confirmed that
Rangoon-Thailand flights will stop until 7 August 2008.

The number of border-cross tourists has also dropped, said a tourist guide
from Mae Sai-Tachilek border.

After cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy delta and some parts of
southern Burma, tourists who had often visited Burma in the past stopped
coming, said the source.

"We used to receive guests at least 3- 4 times a month. Right now, those
who had made bookings earlier have canceled their trips. Even though it is
high season there are no tourists because of unstable situation in Burma,"
the source said.

Since November, 2007 some foreign tourism companies based in Rangoon have
also closed their businesses, according a Rangoon-based tourist guide.

On 2 -3 May tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the coast of Burma and devastated
large parts of the low-lying Irrawaddy delta, leaving at least 134,000
dead or missing and up to 2.5 million people homeless.


____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 9, Associated Press
UN expert concerned about Myanmar comedian's arrest

The United Nations' expert on human rights in Myanmar said Monday he was
very worried about the arrest of a well-known comedian who was trying to
help survivors of last month's devastating cyclone.

Comedian Maung Thura — whose stage name is Zarganar — was taken from his
home in Yangon by police Wednesday night after going to the Irrawaddy
delta to donate relief items to survivors, a relative said.

"I'm very concerned because I don't know so far about his whereabouts,"
said Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N. Human Rights Council's new investigator
for Myanmar.

Quintana, from Argentina, said he asked the government for clarification
about Zarganar's arrest.

The relative said Friday that the family had heard nothing from Zarganar
since the arrest and that the ruling military junta had given no reason
for the arrest.

Zarganar was leading a team of around 40 people assisting cyclone victims,
said Quintana, adding that other actors, comedians and writers were part
of the group.

The U.N. estimates a total of 2.4 million people were made homeless or
were otherwise affected when Cyclone Nargis hit May 2-3, and has warned
that more than 1 million of those still need help, mostly in the
hard-to-reach delta.

The 46-year old comedian and his team had made videos of their relief
activities and Zarganar gave interviews critical of the government's
relief effort to foreign media, including the British Broadcasting Corp.,
whose news broadcasts are popular in Myanmar.

In an interview with the Thailand-based magazine Irrawaddy before his
arrest, Zarganar said some areas in the delta had not been reached by the
government or international aid groups. Zarganar said his group
distributed food, blankets, mosquito nets and other aid.

Quintana, who on Friday presented a 16-page report to the U.N. council on
the situation of basic rights in Myanmar, said he didn't have information
about other members of Zarganar's team being arrested.

But "the detention of Zarganar concerns me a lot," he told reporters.

Zarganar, known for his anti-government jibes, has previously been
arrested together with other actors for openly supporting demonstrations
against the military junta.

U.N. officials and aid groups have criticized the regime for hindering
cyclone relief efforts.

Quintana said if a government is unable to help its people after a
disaster, it has to accept outside aid.

"All states have the obligation to guarantee their people all the rights
with all the available means," he said. "If the means inside the country
are not enough ... there is an obligation to use means from the
international community."

____________________________________

June 9, The Australian
Defector tells of Burmese atrocity – Richard Lloyd Parry

THE leader of the Burmese junta, Than Shwe, ordered the murder of scores
of unarmed villagers and Thai fishermen a decade ago, according to a
senior diplomat and military intelligence officer who defected to the US.

Aung Lin Htut, formerly the deputy chief of mission at the Burmese embassy
in Washington, described to a radio station how 81 people, including women
and children, were shot and buried on an isolated island after straying
into a remote military zone in the southeast of the country in 1998.

After one general hesitated to kill the civilians, fearing the commander
who had given the order was drunk, he was told the instruction came from
``Aba Gyi'' or ``Great Father'' -- the term used to refer to General Than
Shwe.

A few days later, troops from the same base captured a Thai fishing boat
that had strayed close to Christie Island in the Mergui Archipelago. The
22 fishermen on board were shot and buried on the island.

``I was a witness to the two incidents in which a total of about 81 people
were killed,'' Mr Lin Htut, formerly a major in military intelligence,
told the Burmese-language service of Voice of America. ``All of them were
unarmed civilians.''

In 46 years of military rule in Burma, there have been numerous reports of
human rights violations but few have been attested by so well-placed a
source as Mr Lin Htut.

The report comes at a time when General Than Shwe and his regime are under
scrutiny after their refusal to allow a full-scale Western relief
operation for victims of Cyclone Nargis.

The French Government has said the ban comes close to being a ``crime
against humanity'', and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates last week called
it ``criminal neglect''.

Mr Lin Htut sought asylum in the US in 2005, along with six members of his
family, after a purge by General Than Shwe the country's prime minister
and intelligence chief of the time destroyed the careers of a generation
of intelligence officers.

Given the control of information in Burma, his account is impossible to
verify. But it has credibility because it is the first time since his
defection he has made any public comment on his former masters.

In May 1998, Mr Lin Htut was stationed on Zadetkyi Island, a frontline
base close to Burma's maritime border with Thailand. The commander of the
base was Colonel Zaw Min, who is now Minister for Electric Power and
general secretary of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, the
junta's grassroots organisation.

A unit led by the colonel landed on Christie Island and found 59 people
living there to gather wood and bamboo, in violation of Burmese law. The
order came down from headquarters that they were to be ``eliminated''.

Myint Swe, an air force general, said he was a religious person, and that
the matter should be handled delicately. He said he was very concerned by
the timing of the elimination order -- just after lunch, a time when
General Maung Aye, now the No2 in the junta, was usually drunk.


____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

June 9, Inter Press Service
Burma: Crime for civil society to provide relief?

The detention of a prominent comedian in Burma points to an ominous turn
of events in the military-ruled country. It has reportedly become a
‘crime’ for individuals and civil society groups to provide emergency
relief to the hundreds of thousands of cyclone victims.

The bald, bespectacled Maung Thura — or Zargarnar, as he is widely know —
led one such group of unsung heroes, who began raising funds and supplying
aid to those who survived the powerful cyclone that lashed the Irrawaddy
Delta and the Rangoon Division on May 3. His group was comprised of
writers, artists, actors and comedians, among others.

"We started our [volunteer] emergency relief work on May 7, and we are
still working," the 47-year-old said in an interview published in ‘The
Irrawaddy,’ a current affairs magazine run by Burmese journalists exiled
in Thailand. "There are 420 volunteers in our group," he said.

"At the beginning, we took risks [to provide aid], and we had to move
forward on our own. Sometimes we had confrontations with the authorities,"
Zargarnar said, explaining the challenges placed by the notoriously
oppressive Burmese regime in the post-disaster relief effort. "For
example, they asked us why we were going on our own without consulting
them and wanted us to negotiate with them. They said they couldn’t
guarantee our lives."

But last week, Zargarnar’s role as a good samaritan came to an end when
the police took him from his home in Rangoon, the former capital, for a
still-to- be-verified period of detention. The police also seized his
computer files that contained images of the cyclone victims and the relief
efforts.

Zargarnar has been detained and jailed before, beginning in 1988, when he
spoke in support of university students agitating for change to a military
dictatorship that had been in place since a 1962 coup. In August that
year, the junta crushed a peaceful, pro-democracy uprising, killing over
3,000 activists. Zargarnar was jailed for one year soon after.

The last time he was arrested by the police was in Sep. 2007. The ‘crime’
he was detained for then was delivering food and water to some of the
thousands of Buddhist monks who had marched through the streets of Rangoon
in protests against rising food prices and the junta’s oppression.

"What Zargarnar’s arrest has shown is that the SPDC [State Peace and
Development Council] is not happy with the network of civil society groups
that responded promptly to the cyclone," says David Scott Mathieson, Burma
consultant for Human Rights Watch. "[The junta] wants to contain the civil
society response and take all the credit for the relief effort."

Zargarnar has been one of the many prominent artists, writers and
entertainers who have led the relief effort, consequently revealing "the
government’s poor response," he added in an interview. "The effort
Zargarnar led shows Burmese civil society trying to chart an independent
course away from the regime, which only represents itself, and selected
business elite."

The tireless work by ordinary Burmese citizens to help the cyclone
survivors was witnessed by members of international humanitarian agencies
who have flown into the South-east Asian nation since the disaster. "I saw
lots of groups helping people to rebuild their homes. There were also
businessmen who had come to the delta to help, but feared that they could
be arrested for providing relief," said Dean Hirsch, president of World
Vision International, a Christian charity that has worked for years in
Burma.

Hirsch, who just returned to Bangkok after a brief visit to the cyclone-
devastated areas, also praised the efforts of another group that has been
in the forefront offering comfort and relief to the survivors – the monks
in the predominantly Buddhist country. "There was a great response by the
monks. I was impressed with the connections they had in the communities to
get relief goods to the delta," he told IPS. "They were able to access
areas where the government and INGOs (international non-governmental
organisations) could not reach."

In fact, one famous Burmese monk who has come to symbolise this aid drive
is Sitagu Sayadaw Nya Nissara, head of a highly respected monastery in the
Sagaing Division in central Burma, the seat of Burmese Buddhism. He led
relief teams to the Bogale Township — one of the worst hit areas — soon
after the cyclone, which has killed between 130,000 to possibly 300,000
people, and affected between 2.5 million to 5.5 million people.

"He has been the most prominent monk to help the victims. The monks have
played a very significant role, beginning with the opening up of the
temples in the delta to offer refuge for the victims," says Win Min, a
Burmese national security expert teaching in a university in northern
Thailand. "The temples were the strongest buildings in the area, so they
remained standing. Ordinary people who wanted to help came with their
relief goods to the temples for distribution."

"This has certainly brought the monks and people closer," he added during
an interview. "The monks have won the hearts of the people."

And there is no surprise why. The junta not only failed to use its state
machinery to help the victims, but the scale of the country’s worst
natural disaster, affecting over 80,000 square km, was beyond its
capacity. Moreover, the regime continued to place bureaucratic roadblocks
in the way of international relief efforts, resulting in over one million
people still having to get basic relief.

The bond between the monks and the people is one the regime fears. The
regime’s brutal crackdown of last September’s peaceful pro-democracy
protests — led by thousands of robed monks — reveals the discomfort. Since
then, the junta has turned the heat on any moves to strengthen a
beleaguered people’s increasing dependence on the clergy for help and
hope.

A report last week by Amnesty International pointed to the junta’s
strategy, since the cyclone, to break the growing dependency cyclone
victims have on the clergy. Hundreds of cyclone victims who had found
shelter in four monasteries in Bogale were evicted by the regime, revealed
the global rights lobby.

"The SPDC doesn’t want monks to have close connections with the people,"
says Win Min. "This bond will be seen as a threat to the military regime."

____________________________________

June 9, The Cutting Edge
Cyclonic Orwellian drama still plays out in ravaged Burma – Benedict Rogers

Burma’s military regime has officially declared the relief phase over, a
month after Cyclone Nargis hit the country. Displaced people sheltering in
churches, monasteries, schools and other public buildings are being
forcibly evicted, and ordered to return to their homes or to
military-controlled camps. Yet the death toll is estimated to be at least
130,000, and continues to rise. Over 2.5 million people are homeless. Aid
is still only trickling in, and while there are some reports that more
international aid workers have been allowed into the country, the regime
is continuing to obstruct, restrict and delay access for most aid workers.

Meanwhile, the military continues its policies of repression. The
offensive against the Karen ethnic people in eastern Burma goes on. Since
1996, over 3,200 villages in eastern Burma have been destroyed by military
offensives, and a million people displaced. On 27 May, 500 villagers in
eastern Mon township, Karen State, were driven into the jungle. According
to the Free Burma Rangers, a relief organisation working in the conflict
zones, the Burma Army is still “attacking, burning villages and displacing
people”, raping, looting, laying landmines and using people for forced
labor.

Even in the cyclone-affected areas, Burma Army soldiers have killed
survivors for no reason. On 25 May, in Laputta, two people were shot dead.
The following day, a villager in Yaytwinchaung was killed.

On 23 May, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the country and met
Burma’s ruthless dictator, Senior General Than Shwe. At a press conference
in the Hotel Sedona in Rangoon following the meeting, Ban Ki-moon sounded
optimistic: “I am happy to report that we have made progress on all these
issues. This morning, I had a good meeting with Senior General Than Shwe.
He agreed to allow international aid workers into the affected areas,
regardless of nationality. He has taken quite a flexible position.” But
just two days later, Prime Minister Thein Sein announced that the regime
would only “consider” allowing access to international aid workers, “if
they wish to engage in rehabilitation and reconstruction work”. More than
a week on, there are few signs of the regime fulfilling Than Shwe’s
promise.

Four days after Ban Ki-moon’s meeting with Than Shwe, the regime announced
it would extend, once again, the detention of democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who has already spent over 12
years under house arrest. Her current period of house arrest began in
2003, following an assassination attempt against her at Depayin which
resulted in the slaughter of over 100 of her supporters. She is held under
the State Protection Act, which imposes a five year sentence. Her five
years has expired, but on 27 May the regime extended her detention for yet
another six months, breaking their own law. Instead at least 15 of Aung
San Suu Kyi’s supporters were arrested as they attempted to march to her
home.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s continued detention shows that the regime is unwilling
to yield. Ban Ki-moon did not even mention her name, knowing the hostility
with which Than Shwe regards her. The Secretary-General judged that
mentioning her might jeopardise the possibility of improvements in
humanitarian access. His judgment at the time was understandable – but he
has been left empty-handed.

Meanwhile, bodies continue to float in the flood waters and hang in trees,
uncollected. Snake-bite is a common cause of death, as people and snakes
compete for shelter. There are reports that the military has forbidden the
burial of bodies, leaving decomposing corpses to spread more disease.
State media has been dismissive of the humanitarian needs. The New Light
of Myanmar, the regime’s newspaper, declared that farmers could “go out
with lamps at night and catch plump frogs,” and that people were
self-sufficient and did not need “chocolate” from foreign countries. What
they do need, however, is basic food, medicine and shelter – and they
continue to be denied such things.

US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates has accused the junta of “criminal
neglect.” Others, however, go further, charging the Generals with crimes
against humanity. Britain’s Leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron
has warned that if the situation does not change, the Generals should be
brought before the International Criminal Court. The regime could be
accused of negligence for failing to warn its people prior to storm,
despite receiving 41 warnings from India. But its denial of aid and
obstruction of aid workers cannot be put down to incompetence, but rather
to a deliberate desire to hide the truth, and an extraordinarily inhumane
attitude to its people.

One official told foreign aid workers: “What you, Westerners, don’t seem
to understand is that people in the delta are used to having no water to
drink and nothing to eat.”

In perhaps the most perplexing announcement, while ignoring the human
catastrophe unfolding, the Orwellian regime declared the death toll of
livestock. Cyclone Nargis, according to the junta, killed 665,271 ducks,
56,163 cows and 1,614,502 chickens. Meanwhile, US, French and British navy
ships remain stationed off the coast of Burma, loaded with aid, unable to
reach the people. The question on the minds of the hungry and sick Burmese
people is: will those ships force their way in if necessary, or will they
– like so many times before – turn their backs on Burma and sail away?

Benedict Rogers is the author of A Land Without Evil: Stopping the
Genocide of Burma's Karen People (Monarch, 2004), and has visited Burma
and its borderlands more than 20 times. He also serves as Deputy Chairman
of the UK Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.