BurmaNet News, May 5, 2009

[Editor]

May 5, 2009, Issue #3704



INSIDE BURMA
AP: Myanmar rejects appeal for Suu Kyi release
DPA:Myanmar has food surplus, junta claims
Narinjara: Police ordered not to charge politicians in political cases

ON THE BORDER
Mizzima News: Burmese lawyers says junta should be taken to ICC
Kaladan Press: BDR pushes back 12 Rohingyas

HEALTH / AIDS
DVB: Food crisis reported in two states

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: Myanmar opposition appeals to Clinton

OPINION / OTHER
IPS: Opposition balks at giving legitimacy to 2010 polls – Marwaan
Macan-Markar
ABMA: Letter to the The Honorable Hilary Clinton on U.S. policy review on
Burma
Irrawaddy: Family survives by trapping rodents – Aung Thet Win



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

May 5, Associated Press
Myanmar rejects appeal for Suu Kyi release

Myanmar's junta has rejected an appeal to free pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi, whose most recent period of detention will expire May 27, her
party spokesman said Tuesday.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has spent more than 13 of the last 19 years
— including the past six — under house arrest in Yangon despite
international pressure for her release.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The current junta came to
power in 1988 after crushing a nationwide pro-democracy uprising. It held
elections in 1990 but refused to honor the results after Suu Kyi's party
won a landslide victory.

National League for Democracy spokesman Nyan Win said the country's
military authorities summoned the assistant to Suu Kyi's lawyer to the
administrative capital of Naypyitaw last Friday and handed over a letter
rejecting the appeal for her release.

Nyan Win said the letter stated that "grounds for her appeal were not
strong enough."

"The rejection is not fair because the appeal was not given a proper and
full hearing," he said.

Suu Kyi's lawyer, Kyi Win, filed an appeal in October with the military
government against her detention based on nine reasons, including one
asserting that "she was never a threat to the security of the state."

The 1975 anti-subversion law under which she has been confined without
trial says detentions of up to five years at a time are permissible for
those who could be a threat to public order.

Her house arrest was extended by one year in May last year, an apparent
violation of a law that stipulates that no one can be held longer than
five years without being released or put on trial.

However, a commentary in the state-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper
last June said detentions were permissible for as long as six years.

The commentary said yearly extensions must be approved by the Council of
Ministers and then by the Central Body, which includes the home, defense
and foreign affairs ministers.

Nyan Win said he is still hopeful Suu Kyi will be freed later this month
when her six-year detention expires, although there were no indications
that she would be released.

____________________________________

May 5, Deutsche Presse Agentur
Myanmar has food surplus, junta claims

Myanmar's ruling military junta claimed the country has almost tripled its
rice production over the past two decades, boasting a food surplus despite
the destruction of Cyclone Nargis last year and reports of famine
conditions in Chin state, state newspapers reported Tuesday.

Myanmar's current annual rice production has reached 1.6 billion baskets
(with one basket equalling about 33 kilograms), the junta's chief, Senior
General Than Shwe, said Monday.

Than Shwe said Myanmar 'had not only reached self-sufficiency but also a
surplus in food.'

He said Myanmar's annual rice production was only 600 million baskets in
1989 when the junta came to power but had now nearly doubled.

'There is no need to worry about food even when the nation's population
reaches 100 million,' Than Shwe said. Myanmar's population now is at an
estimated 53 million.

The World Food Programme, which studied Myanmar's food situation earlier
this year, concluded that the country as a whole was enjoying a good crop
in 2009 despite the devastation wrought by Nargis in the Irrawaddy Delta
and near-famine conditions in Chin state in western Myanmar.

After a visit to Chin state late last year, the UN agency concluded that
residents suffered one of the worst food situations in the country.
Famine, caused by a rat infestation, has been declared in the state.

Although apparently enjoying a food surplus, the government has done
little to relieve the famine-like situation for the Chin, a minority
group, a human rights group charged.

'The government has done nothing to respond to the poverty and food
shortages in the Chin state,' said Human Rights Watch's Amy Alexander. 'In
fact, the army makes it worse by demanding food and money from the people
in the Chin state.'

Myanmar's military rulers have also been faulted for not supplying
sufficient rice seed and fertilizer for replanting fields devastated by
Nargis, which killed an estimated 140,000 people in May 2008.

____________________________________

May 5, Narinjara
Police ordered not to charge politicians in political cases

The police department in Arakan state has strict orders from the military
junta authorities in Naypyidaw not to sue any politician on political
cases (lawsuit) even if they are arrested on political grounds, said a
police official.

“This is intended to send a message to the international community by the
junta that Burma has no political prisoners, only criminals. This is the
reason authorities do not want to bring political lawsuits against
politicians.”

The junta has been persistent in its denial that Burma has no political
prisoners whenever right groups and the international community have
alleged that Burma has many political prisoners detained by the military
regime.

“Recently we arrested some politicians and democracy activists in Arakan
state for involvement in anti-junta activities but we charged them on
other grounds like immigration cases, not political ones due to the order
from higher ups,” he said.

The regime authorities arrested some activists including Ko Mrat Tun and
Ko San Lwin recently in Arakan but they were charged under the immigration
law even though they were involved in political activities.

After charging them under the immigration law, the courts sentenced them
to five years in prison each.

Many Arakanese activists were arrested after the saffron revolution but
they were charged with criminal cases, not for political activity.

This is the reason, many political prisoners are not being provided with
political prisoner status and therefore deprived of the living standard in
prison meant for politicians.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

May 5, Mizzima News
Burmese lawyers says junta should be taken to ICC – Mungpi

The Burma Lawyers’ Council in exile has said it is gathering evidence and
collating ideas on how to produce the Burmese military generals in the
International Criminal Court (ICC), for the crimes  it had committed,
including crimes against humanity.

The BLC, formed with Burmese lawyers in exile, on Tuesday said, it was
looking for a way to file a case against the Burmese junta, for its crimes
against the country’s citizens.

“We are looking at ways to determine how we can file a case against the
junta, for their brutal actions against the Burmese people,” Thein Oo,
Chairman of the BLC, told Mizzima.

He said, as a step towards looking for a way to bring the junta to the
ICC, the BLC along with the International Federation for Human Rights
(IFDH) is bringing together international experts, Burmese activists and
others to a two-day seminar in Bangkok.

“This seminar is to brainstorm on how best to get justice for the
suffering people in Burma and how the international community can take
action against the brutal regime,” Thein Oo said.

The campaign to bring the Burmese military junta to the ICC began about
two years ago, with a vague idea by the BLC. However, today, it has gained
momentum and is able to draw the attention of international experts as
well as the Burmese regime.

On Friday, May 1, 2009, Burma’s military regime in its official
mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar, declared the Burma Lawyers’ Council
and other associated organizations and persons as unlawful.

The paper said, acts of the BLC and its members were harmful for the
stability of the nation and therefore, Chairman of the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC), Snr Gen Than Shwe declared the BLC and its
members unlawful.

Although this gesture of the Burmese regime may seem to be a mere
coincidence, sources in the military establishment told Mizzima, the junta
fears that the BLC’s efforts might gain greater momentum.

According to sources, the Burmese embassy in Bangkok was diplomatically
approaching Thailand, where the seminar is being held on May 4 and 5.

During the seminar, Burmese activists and international experts discussed
how the regime had perpetrated human rights abuses with impunity and how
they could be made accountable for the crimes they had committed.

But, as Burma has not rectified the Rome Statute, the treaty that
established the International Criminal Court in July 2002, the ICC does
not have any jurisdiction over Burma.

However, a clause under the statute of Territorial Jurisdiction of the
treaty allows the ICC to act on a case based on a referral by the United
Nations Security Council. The clause says the court is allowed to exercise
jurisdiction, “where a situation is referred to the court by the UN
Security Council”.

Thein Oo said, “The case of the UN Security Council referring it to the
ICC might not take place soon but we are already in the process of
campaigning for it.”

He said, they would present the case to the UNSC explaining how Burma’s
military regime’s actions were threatening peace and security in the
region.

Rights groups have accused Burma’s military junta of systematically
abusing the rights of its own citizens, causing outflow of a large number
of refugees and migrants. The junta’s military actions in eastern Burma
have also particularly caused thousands of people to become homeless and
live in the jungles.

____________________________________

May 5, Kaladan Press
BDR pushes back 12 Rohingyas

Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) pushed back 12 Rohingyas including women and
children on April 3, at about 3 pm from Teknaf, says our correspondent
from Teknaf.

Six men, two women and four children after crossing Naff River reached
Teknaf on Sunday at about 2:30 pm. They were pushed back to Burma by the
BDR at about 3 pm. They were not allowed to climb the embankment on the
Bangladesh side.

According to sources, many Rohingyas are preparing to cross the Burma-
Bangladesh border because of increasing persecution against the Rohingya
community in Northern Arakan, said a local trader on condition of
anonymity.

Rohingyas are forced to work in embankment construction, carrying stones
and other material for fencing the Burma-Bangladesh border. They also face
arbitrary arrests, torture for extortion. Besides, the army, Nasaka
(Burma’s border security force) and police create problems between
Rohingya villagers and the authorities to force the Rohingya community to
flee them from their homes, the trader added.

After Burma started to fence the Burma-Bangladesh border, the BDR planned
to push back Burmese nationals who crossed the Naff River. Earlier, the
BDR also pushed back some Rohingyas to Burma. But, now, BDR has decided to
push back any Burmese national crossing the border. Security has been
tightened on the border.

Recently, the BDR held a meeting in Cox’s Bazaar inviting local upazila
chairmen, especially from border areas and asked them to inform BDR, if
any Rohingya crosses the Burma-Bangladesh border. They have decided to
push back Burmese nationals immediately, according to a BDR official.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

May 5, Democratic Voice of Burma
Food crisis reported in two states – Beth Macdonald and Rosalie Smith

A United Nations body has begun to establish aid programmes for villages
in Burma’s Chin state to tackle the ongoing famine there, whilst a human
rights group has issued a report about a serious food crisis in Karen
state.

Chin state in northwest Burma has been suffering from famine since 2007.
The trigger was the mass flowering of bamboo, which occurs roughly every
fifty years, and attracts hordes of rats which feed on bamboo seeds before
moving on to crops and stored grains.

Now, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will hand out rice to
nine villages in Matupi township, Chin state.

Similarly, the World Food Programme has launched a “Food plus Cash for
Work” assistance program in six townships, focusing on developing food
security in the area through agricultural land development, road
construction, and projects earmarked by the communities.

Meanwhile, a report released last week by the Karen Human Rights Group
(KHRG) highlighted the food crisis in Burma’s eastern Karen state, which
is reported as being a direct result of excessive military demands in the
area.

Government troops in Karen state are encouraged to be ‘self-sufficient’.

Villagers’ food stocks are often destroyed or confiscated by the army, and
restrictions of movement prevent villagers from buying supplies.

The current economic crisis, along with the rising food prices and climate
change, add to the problem, KHRG reports.

In both states, people are reported to be suffering from malnutrition and
potentially fatal as a result of food shortages.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

May 5, Agence France Presse
Myanmar opposition appeals to Clinton

Two prominent Myanmar opposition leaders sent a joint appeal Tuesday to US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to keep sanctions on the
military regime and engage regional powers.

The opposition figures -- Ashin Aww Bar Sa of the All Burma Monks'
Alliance and Tun Myint Aung of the 88 Generation Students -- said they
signed the letter in a hiding place as they fear they will be arrested
imminently.

In the letter, the two asked the United States to maintain sanctions until
the junta releases political prisoners and enters "meaningful" dialogue
with the opposition.

The junta has "been complaining that the US and Western nations that have
imposed sanctions are making the people poor, our country underdeveloped
and our economy destroyed," they wrote in the letter.

"Let us be clear -- it is the military junta and its disastrous economic
policies, terror, corruption, illegal rule and mismanagement that have
turned one of the richest countries in Asia into one of the least
developed in the world," they wrote.

US President Barack Obama's administration is conducting a review of
policy on Myanmar, also known as Burma, whose junta has kept democracy
icon Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for nearly two decades.

A senior State Department official recently told Congress that the
administration was not considering lifting sanctions. A prominent US
senator, Jim Webb, has supported an eventual end to sanctions, saying the
current approach was not working.

In the letter, the Myanmar opposition leaders supported US efforts to hold
direct dialogue with the junta but said Washington needed to reach the
country's top leader, Senior General Than Shwe.

They also called on the United States to engage other nations in a
solution on Myanmar including China -- the junta's main backer -- and
nations in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The All Burma Monks' Alliance and 88 Generation Students were both
involved in protests in 2007 that started as rallies over the rising cost
of living but escalated into the regime's biggest threat in nearly 20
years.

At least 31 people were killed when security forces cracked down on the
protesters, according to the United Nations.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

May 5, Inter Press Service
Opposition balks at giving legitimacy to 2010 polls – Marwaan Macan-Markar

With the hint of a general election in the air, the largest opposition
party in military-ruled Burma is facing a dilemma about its future. Should
it or should it not contest the planned poll in 2010?

The uncertainty that grips the National League for Democracy (NLD) was
evident in the statements that flowed from a rare meeting of its
leadership during the last week of April. The NLD has opted for a
wait-and-see approach about fielding candidates for next year’s poll.

Notable, is the party’s tactful use of this pre-election summit at its
headquarters to test the political waters - now that the junta has made a
commitment towards parliamentary elections after 19 years as part of its
"roadmap to democracy."

It was a gamble with high risks, even possible jail terms for the 150
delegates from across the country who attended. After all, the junta’s
oppressive sweep has forced the party to close down all its offices across
the country bar one, and denied the party the right to meet as a
collective for over a decade.

The regime in Burma, or Myanmar, as the military rulers have renamed the
country, has also arrested and imprisoned scores of NLD members, including
those elected to parliament during the 1990 poll. No one symbolises this
more than Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who heads the
NLD. The pro-democracy leader continues to remain under house arrest, now
in its thirteenth year.

In a direct challenge to the junta’s push towards the polls, the NLD’s
chairman, Aung Shwe, called for the "unconditional release" of all
political prisoners - now over 2,100 - and freedom for Suu Kyi to pave the
way for an inclusive political environment ahead of next year’s
country-wide elections.

The party’s two-day gathering in Rangoon, the former capital, also called
for a "review of the 2008 constitution" and "politically substantive
initial dialogue" between Suu Kyi and Burma’s head of state, Senior
General Than Shwe, according to an NLD document seen by IPS.

Regarding the 2010 poll, the NLD held back from giving it any legitimacy
by stating, "We need to wait and see the political party registration law
and electoral law to decide whether we could participate in the election
under this constitution."

"The NLD is not going to give in to the junta very easily. The party wants
to hear the views of all leaders and to be able to speak in one voice when
the decision is made about the 2010 elections," says Zinn Lin, an NLD
member currently living in exile in Thailand. "The last time the party
tried to meet was in 1998, but the authorities didn’t permit that
gathering. And they have been denied this right till now."

"It is uncertain what will happen to the delegates who came for the
meeting, because the party’s headquarters was watched by hundreds of
intelligence officers and people from the special branch, taking pictures
and filming it on video," Zinn Lin told IPS. "Such intimidation is proof
that NLD members are not free to operate ahead of the election that the
military regime wants to have next year."

The current climate of intimidation NLD members face is a far cry from
what it was during the months leading up to the 1990 general elections.
"The 1990 elections were conducted under a free and fair situation.
Political parties openly campaigned," says Win Hlaing, minister in the
prime minister’s office of the National Coalition Government of the Union
of Burma (NCGUB), the democratically elected government in exile.

"There has been no positive change since then, after Gen. Than Shwe’s era
began," he told IPS. "There is so much hardship and intimidation. The NLD
and all opposition voices are targets."

Mark Canning, the British ambassador in Burma, echoes such sentiments. "It
remains the case that the situation in Burma is characterised by the
denial of freedom. It is a very very repressive place," he said in Bangkok
last week.

The junta’s oppression, in fact, is rooted in the outcome of the 1990 poll
that shocked the military regime of the day, which had been in power since
a 1962 coup. The NLD, which had been formed ahead of that poll, won a
convincing 82 percents of the seats in 485-seat legislature.

It was a victory fuelled by local anger following 28 years of military
oppression and a brutal crackdown of a pro-democracy uprising in August
1988, which saw over 3,000 unarmed protesters gunned down by troops on the
streets of Rangoon.

The military regime refused to recognise the results of the 1990 election,
denying the NCGUB the opportunity to replace the powerful military
government.

To avoid a repeat of such an election debacle in 2010, the junta has
pushed through a new constitution with conditions that favour undiluted
power of the military, including a required 25 percent of the seats in the
upper and lower houses of the new legislature reserved for army officers.

The May 2008 referendum to approve the new constitution was mired in
charges of voter rigging and other election malpractice. The junta,
however, praised the outcome, which it claimed had been endorsed by 94.4
percent of the voters and had a 98.1 percent voter turnout.

"The 2008 constitution makes it impossible for political parties to
contest in 2010 based on their own vision," says Aung Htoo, general
secretary of the Burma Lawyers’ Council, based in Mae Sot, on the
Thai-Burma border. "Chapter 10 denies parties like the NLD to set their
own objectives. Under this constitution, you cannot even form a Green
Party to campaign for the environment."

I don’t think that the party registration law and the electoral law that
the NLD is waiting to see will improve anything," he told IPS. "The
constitution’s restrictions are what matters."

____________________________________

May 5, All Burma Monks’ Alliance
Letter to the The Honorable Hilary Clinton on U.S. policy review on Burma

Madam Secretary,

We are writing on behalf of the All Burma Monks’ Alliance (ABMA) and the
88 Generation Students, two prominent opposition groups fighting for
democracy and human rights in Burma by peaceful means. The 88 Generation
Students group was founded in 2005 by former student leaders, who spent
over a decade in prisons experiencing beatings and torture for their
leading role organizing the nationwide democracy uprising in 1988. The 88
Generation Students led peaceful protests in August 2007 against the
military junta’s sudden increase of fuel prices and many leaders of it,
including Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi, Htay Kywe, Jimmy and Mya Aye, were
rearrested. Following their arrest, hundreds of thousands of Buddhist
monks and nuns, led by the ABMA, held peaceful demonstrations nationwide,
calling for the junta to release all political prisoners and solve the
problems through meaningful and time-bound dialogue with democratic
opposition led by Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The
junta responded with bloody and violent crackdown and many monks, nuns and
lay people were brutally killed by its soldiers in September 2007, widely
known as the Saffron Revolution. Many leading monks, including Ashin
Gambira, were arrested. They have been sentenced to severe imprisonment
and transferred to remote prisons. Solitary confinement and torture are
their daily life.

We are deeply appreciative of the United States’ role under both
Democratic and Republican administrations in supporting our freedom
movement. We write this letter to you from a hiding place that is part of
our underground movement. Since our arrest could be imminent, it is
critical that we relay this important message to you.

We fully support the National League for Democracy party and the
non-violent struggle for democracy led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. We join in
the demand by the NLD to Burma’s military junta to release all political
prisoners and allow them to participate in the country’s political process
without fear of retribution. As it stands today, the constitution the
junta has written unilaterally and adopted by force and fraud in May 2008
permanently enshrines military rule and creates the illusion of a
democratic process. The planned upcoming “elections” in 2010 are designed
to place a veneer of democratic process over a totalitarian, brutal junta.

We can not agree to participate under such an electoral farce. Doing so
would mean that tens of thousands of Burmese patriots—democracy
activists—who have fought for freedom and experienced torture, oppression
and even death would have done so in vain. Their sacrifice to democracy
and the future of our country would be worthless.

We want a Burma that is free, stable and at peace. We welcome an
opportunity to engage with the military regime to review and revise the
constitution through a tripartite dialogue taking place with all
stakeholders: the military, the NLD and our ethnic representatives. We
strongly believe that these demands are the solution to move our country
on the path of national reconciliation and democratization peacefully. We
appreciate the U.S. Government and Congress for taking strong economic and
diplomatic actions against the Burma’s junta during the past decade. Your
country’s actions represent a moral statement that America will not engage
in trade with the Burma’s junta that will only serve to finance the
military’s instruments of oppression. These measures are also necessary to
remind the generals in power that their crimes against humanity and the
brutal and terrible war they wage against their own people are fully
noticed and strongly denounced by the civilized world.

Recently, the junta’s officials have asked the United Nations to try to
remove economic sanctions on Burma. They have blamed the NLD, Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi, and our democracy movement as instigators for these sanctions.
They have been complaining that the U.S. and Western nations that have
imposed sanctions are making the people poor, our country underdeveloped,
and our economy destroyed. Let us be clear—it is the military junta and
its disastrous economic policies, terror, corruption, illegal rule and
mismanagement that have turned one of the richest countries in Asia into
one of the least developed in the world.

We understand that you have ordered a review of Burma policy. Here are our
recommendations.

(1) We believe that no sanctions should be lifted on the junta until
political prisoners have been released and a meaningful dialogue between
the junta, the NLD and representatives of our many ethnic groups has
finalized a new constitution.

(2) We believe that U.S. leadership with strong diplomatic effort to
organize other nations, especially Burma’s neighbors China, India and
ASEAN, as well as the EU to work together to address the situation in
Burma with common interest, shared responsibility, unified action, and
clear benchmark will be the best way to make sanctions and engagement
effective and produce positive results.

(3) We support the direct engagement between the U.S. and Burma’s military
junta. However, such direct engagement should reach to the sole decision
maker of the junta, Senior General Than Shwe.

(4) We suggest you should consider additional measures that include the
addition of Burmese crony businessmen and the junta’s political surrogates
to visa ban and financial sanctions lists; and calling for a global arms
embargo at the U.N. Security Council; if the junta still refuses to
implement the meaningful change.

We want to assure you that as you and the civilized world do your part, we
do ours. Each of us has committed our lives to the freedom of our country
in the same manner as your Founding Fathers did when they signed the
Declaration of Independence. For us there is not going back from this
freedom road we are traveling. We have confidence knowing that our country
will be free because we have truth on our side where this junta has only
brutality, guns, fear and terror to support it. We know our cause is just
and we are joined by millions of our citizens.

One day, our country will be free. When that hour comes and the history of
our democracy movement can be written, it will be with great appreciation
how we will tell of the moral and political support that the American
people gave to us during the darkest hours of our struggle.
And that out of your support a new country was born rooted in democratic
rights and individual liberties.

Sincerely yours,
Ashin Aww Bar Sa
All Burma Monks’ Alliance
Rangoon, Burma
abmaburma at gmail.com
____________________________________

May 5, Irrawaddy
Family survives by trapping rodents – Aung Thet Win

At 3 a.m., a mother and her 10-year-old daughter shine a flashlight on a
small iron trap in a dry field. The woman bends down and removes several
dead rats from the trap. She hands the rodents to the girl, who clutches
several more in her small hand.

To earn enough kyat to survive, the rodents will be sold for food in the
morning market.

"I set up these traps with some rice seeds around eleven at night, and I
have to go to collect the catch in the morning,” said Khin Thaung.

Her eight-member family struggles to survive and still they can’t make
ends meet. Her husband works as a farm laborer when he can, but now he
also helps set the rodent traps.

"Before the cyclone, landlords used to hire manual laborers to plough
their land,” said Khin Thaung’s husband. “Now, they are reluctant to hire
laborers, and they go into the fields and work themselves. They are also
having a hard time."

"Our family members divide up the field and all work to collect the rats,”
said Daw Khin Thaung.  Rodent meat sells for about 700 kyat (US $.50
cents) a viss (less than 1 kilo). She usually collects about 3 viss a day.

The earnings don’t meet family expenses, but for now, it’s the only income
they have. Many of the poorest families in the Irrawaddy delta also trap
and sell rodents while others survive by selling fish.

Chat Kyi, 35, wandered alone along a river near his village in the evening
light, regularly stopping to cast his hand-net into the shallows in hopes
of catching small fish or a few prawn.

To support his family of five, he needs at least 2,000 kyat ($1.90) a day
or they go hungry. He said he can see the faces of his hungry children at
home as he fishes.

"Since the cyclone, it is difficult to catch fish,” he said. “Before, I
could throw the net in the river and catch fish, after throwing out broken
rice. But even if I scatter rice now, the fish are very few.”

In better days, he could count on netting at least two viss of Nga-Phae
and two viss of Nga-Sin-Yine and other prawns, earning around 5,000 kyat
($4.70) day.

Before, the river was crowded with fishermen but many died during the
cyclone and others left in search of better jobs.

The fishing on this day isn’t good, said Chat Kyi, and he may have to
borrow some money to buy a little rice. Added the rice to today’s catch of
small prawn, he might have enough to feed his children, who aren’t getting
enough to eat.

Chat Kyi said he still sees the remains of a few dead bodies around his
village. With little sign of better opportunities on the way, he is
thinking about relocating to a larger city to look for regular work.

Even people not on the lowest rung of the economic ladder are struggling.

Kyaw Mya, 45, a farmer who owns 60 acres of land around Ywa Thit village
in Gon Hnin Tan village tract in Laputta Township, sighed deeply as he
looked at his dry land. He tried to restart his rice farm just after the
cyclone by taking out a loan. However, he produced a smaller rice crop
this year, and he now owes almost 2 million kyat to money lenders. It’s
very hard, he said, to make the payment on the 8 percent loan each month.
Now, he pays only the monthly interest due, which totals 240,000 kyat.

Normally, he could count on 60 baskets of rice per acre, when he grows
Ka-ma-kyi, a high yield variety. However, he got only 30 baskets an acre
this year. Moreover, his production cost this year was twice as much for
seeds, labor, fertilizer and diesel for the tiller machines.

Previously, Ka-ma-kyi rice sold for 400,000 to 500,000 kyat for a hundred
baskets, but the going price is now around 300,000, he said.

Because of his indebtedness, he said, he will have to take his children
out of school.

"I’m not even sure if I can grow rice this year,” he said.” I can't pay
back the loans I borrowed last year, and I would need another loan to put
in more crops. I have no idea what to do,” said Kyaw Myint.

One year after Cyclone Nargis, his desperation and anxiety are shared by
many people in the Irrawaddy delta.