Burma - helping all we can

So things are pretty serious, Burma (myanmar) is up shit creek and there is very little anyone can do. Michelle, who helped coordinate the Summer Camp we sponsored for children of migrant Burmese workers has been asked to help run relief efforts for part of the Irrawaddy river delta. She is a professional NGO coordinator, speaks and understands Burmese and has a network in place of Monks and monastaries who will help with distribution. She has supplies, money and
more than enough will power.

Sadly the bastards in Burma won't approve her visa. With the death toll approaching 100,000 and the government having done nothing to prevent (they did not warn their own citizens about the cyclone - India did and lost very people) and are doing nothing to help. So since they aren't doing anything, they won't allow anyone else to either?

It's really frustrating sitting right here - just 2 hours from the border, with supplies, money, skilled people and the ability to help - and not being allowed to. And there is not really anything anyone can do short of invading. Burma is already boycotted by the world (except China) and the people are so poor it's frightening.

Anyhow - rant over....here's an article from the IHT with more details.

and next time you see the Burmese Dictators hanging out - hit them with a brick.

"The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said Wednesday that the United Nations should invoke its "responsibility to protect" civilians as the basis for a resolution to force delivery of aid to Myanmar, even if over the objections of the military government there.

International agencies and other governments have been eager to alleviate the devastation over the weekend by Cyclone Nargis, which is believed to have killed at least 22,500 people, according to official figures, perhaps 40 percent of them children. The Myanmar government has said that as many as 41,000 people are missing and up to one million are homeless.

A UN official in Bangkok, Richard Horsey, said Wednesday that "thousands of bodies" were floating in nearly 5,200 square kilometers, or 2,000 square miles, of the flooded delta of the Irrawaddy River, the hardest-hit area.

John Holmes, the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, said Wednesday that the number of people killed might rise "very significantly" beyond the government's official estimate. The top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, Shari Villarosa, said that 100,000 might have died and that 95 percent of buildings in the affected area were demolished.

The government in Yangon has let in little aid and has restricted movement in the delta, aid agencies say. It has not granted visas to aid workers, even though supplies are being marshaled in nearby countries like Thailand.

"We are seeing at the United Nations if we can't implement the responsibility to protect, given that food, boats and relief teams are there, and obtain a United Nations resolution which authorizes the delivery and imposes this on the Burmese government," said Kouchner, who co-founded the aid group Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders.

In 2005, the United Nations recognized the concept of "responsibility to protect" civilians when their governments could or would not do it, even if this meant intervention that violated national sovereignty. But this has been rarely applied.

Visa approvals have not been given for UN disaster relief specialists, the officials said. Of the several dozen employees of UN agencies waiting in Bangkok for visas, only a handful have received approval.

"We were very hopeful we would get positive responses," said Tony Banbury, the regional director of the UN World Food Program. "Unfortunately, we got no response."

The agency, one among a half-dozen with staff on standby, is flying in 45 tons of high-energy biscuits on Thursday morning from warehouses in Bangladesh, but has 13 personnel waiting to enter Myanmar to help with distribution. The junta agreed to allow the shipment only after a day of discussions, Banbury said.

"When we informed them that we wanted to transport these biscuits by air, the initial response was, O.K., as long as you hand them over to us," he said. "That's not the way we operate. That turned into an all-day discussion. In the end they agreed that the World Food Program would be responsible for handing them out."

Holmes, the UN humanitarian official, said the United Nations would immediately release at least $10 million from its emergency relief fund for Myanmar and would begin a global appeal on Friday to raise more based on an initial UN damage assessment.

The Myanmar government has told UN officials that it dedicated 7 helicopters and 80 ships to relief operations.

"Seven is a very small number considering the enormous logistical needs," said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the World Food Program's Asia operations.

The political party of the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, has called for urgent international aid. But the reclusive generals who run Myanmar are obviously reluctant to allow large numbers of foreigners into the country.

One reason may be that on Saturday, Burmese are supposed to vote on an important referendum on a proposed constitution backed by the military; so far, voting is expected to go ahead in much of the country.

Many countries are sending supplies to neighboring Thailand to await approval to move them into Myanmar. Spain, for example, announced that it would send a plane with 13 tons of medicine, tents and drinking water to Thailand, while awaiting permission from Yangon to deliver the aid.

In Washington, the White House press secretary, Dana Perino, said Wednesday that Myanmar had still not responded to its offers of aid.

"Everybody can understand that there is no substitute for being there on the ground to help people directly, and trying to do so remotely is going to be impossible," she said.

Washington's understanding, she said, is that "no one has been granted access to go in." An American disaster relief team is waiting in Thailand.

In Paris, Kouchner, whose Doctors Without Borders was organized to provide emergency medical help in closed political areas, said that French, British and Indian navies had ships directly opposite the worst-hit areas of Myanmar and were ready to help.

"It would only take half an hour for the French boats and French helicopters to reach the disaster area, and I imagine it's the same story for our British friends," he said. "We are putting constant pressure on the Burmese authorities but we haven't yet got the go-ahead."

But in a possibly encouraging sign, Myanmar granted the Danish ambassador in Thailand, Michael Sternberg, a one-week visa to help evaluate the extent of the damage and aid needs there, the Danish Foreign Ministry announced in Copenhagen.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, urged Myanmar's government on Wednesday to speed up the arrival of aid workers and relief supplies "in every way possible."

Myanmar state television news on Wednesday quoted General Tha Aye as reassuring people that the situation was "returning to normal."

The state-run Myanmar media have shown countless images of generals handing out food and surveying damage, footage that is meant to reinforce the notion that the military is in control, said Win Min, a lecturer in contemporary Burmese politics at Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

"They are trying to show the people that you have to rely on us, not foreigners, not the opposition," he said.

But even in the capital, Yangon, prices in the market were reported to be doubled for rice, cooking oil, charcoal and bottled water. Much of Yangon is reported to be without power, so residents could not use their pumps to obtain drinking water from wells."