No foreigners, no cameras for Myanmar
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Images of the dead keep trickling out of Myanmar. The most moving are
those of children who died when Cyclone Nargis tore through the populous
Irrawaddy Delta.
Among those e-mailed to Inter Press Service (IPS)is one showing a row of six
children, girls in faded dresses, a boy in shorts and an orange shirt, and
another in a blue sarong. There is an image of a child, face down, stuck
between branches of a bush. And there is another of a man, shock on his face,
holding a dead baby in his arms.
Yet the photographer does not want to be named. He knows the
risks he faces if he is identified in a country ruled by a military that has
known no limits to its oppression since coming to power following a 1962 coup.
Even the May 2-3 cyclone, which has according to some estimates killed over
100,000 people and rendered over a million homeless, has done little to change
the junta's iron grip.
This week, a senior junta official issued another command to extend the blanket
of censorship that has been thrown over the devastated terrain. Prime Minister
Thein Sein told a meeting of pro-junta businessmen that "no foreigners" and "no
cameras" would be permitted in the devastated delta in southwestern Myanmar,
according to an informed source.
The order from that meeting, held at the Yangon military command headquarters,
comes in the wake of the junta denying visas to foreign journalists to enter
the country and its enforcement of tougher restrictions on cyclone coverage by
local news publications.
The junta's attempt to keep Myanmar's worst natural disaster from the public
eye is part of a strategy that has become painfully clear during the 10 days
since the cyclone struck. The regime wants to give the impression, locally and
internationally, that it has the relief efforts under control.
Its interaction with United Nations officials in Yangon, the former capital,
has set the tone. Until May 9, the junta had not made a formal or informal
request for UN assistance, a highly-placed source in the dilapidated city said
in an interview. "They have still remained aloof."
In fact, assistance by UN agencies in Myanmar thus far has been shaped by the
latter's initiative. "The UN has been offering assistance - even battling to
provide it - and they accept it in bits and pieces," the source added.
Any hope that UN officials harbored of a change in attitude were dashed at a
press conference given by three ministers on Sunday. This military trio, which
included social welfare minister General Maung Maung Swe, informed the media
that the government was "in control of the situation", and that thanks to the
government's response "nobody has died except as a direct result of the
cyclone" and that it was "grateful for the international aid provided".
"Myanmar is pleased to receive assistance, but distribution is to be done by
the government and foreigners are not allowed in affected areas," General Maung
Maung Swe reportedly said. "If you want to visit, write to us; we will consider
on a case-by-case basis and go together at the appropriate time."
No wonder then the UN's exasperation at what some have described as the junta's
criminal negligence. This frustration was on full display at the highest
echelons of the world body on Monday.
"I want to register my deep concern - and immense frustration - at the
unacceptably slow response to this grave humanitarian crisis," UN secretary
general Ban Ki-moon said at a press conference. "I therefore call, in the most
strenuous terms, on the government of Myanmar to put its people's lives first.
It must do all that it can to prevent this disaster from becoming even more
serious."
Ban also used the conference to echo the view of many international relief
agencies gathered in Bangkok who are having difficulty getting their emergency
relief staff and experts into the delta because of Myanmar's visa restrictions.
"They, too, need greater access and freedom of movement," he said.
The junta shot down Ban's call barely hours after it was made. "The nation does
not need skilled relief workers yet," a senior junta official was reported to
have said in Tuesday's edition of the New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a
mouthpiece of the junta. In doing so, the regime reaffirmed the kind of
assistance it is receptive to - cash donations or aid in kind given directly to
the generals in power.
Typical of such assistance was the aid rushed to Myanmar by its giant western
neighbor, India. A week after the cyclone struck, New Delhi sent two Indian
naval ships - the INS Rana and INS Kirpan - loaded with immediate relief and
medical supplies. Four Indian Air Force planes - two AN-32s and two IL-76s -
loaded with tents, medicine and roofing material also made deliveries.
India's assistance was received in Yangon by Foreign Minister Nyan Win and
Social Welfare Minister Gen Maung Maung Swe. Similar government-to-government
aid efforts have been carried out by Myanmar's neighbors and commercial allies
Thailand and China, as well as cash donations from smaller Asian countries such
as Singapore and Cambodia.
"This way there are no impediments, there is no confusion," a diplomat from a
developing country told IPS. "Most developing countries prefer it this way."
While welcome, such aid is barely a trickle compared to what the cyclone-torn
country really needs. It has also failed to win support from some international
humanitarian agencies and Myanmar citizens living both in the country and in
exile. The military regime, they say, is not equipped to handle a disaster of
such monumental scale. What is more, there is emerging evidence that the junta
is misusing the aid, they add.
And the likelihood of the junta changing its ways seems remote if the behavior
of the country's strongman, the reclusive Senior General Than Shwe, is any
indicator: so far he has refused to even receive repeated calls from the UN
secretary general.
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