ONLY a tiny portion of international relief is reaching Burma's cyclone victims, the UN said yesterday, amid reports the country's military regime is hoarding high-quality foreign aid for itself while people make do with rotten food.
"There is obviously still a lot of frustration that this aid effort hasn't picked up pace" ten days after the cyclone hit, said Richard Horsey, the spokesman for the UN humanitarian operation in Bangkok.
The UN said the World Food Programme is get
ting in 20 per cent of the food needed because of bottlenecks, logistics problems and government-imposed restrictions.
The delays have only served to bolster complaints that the military is appropriating the aid for itself.
A long-term foreign resident of the country's biggest city, Rangoon, said government officials have complained to him about military leaders misappropriating aid, though the UN could not confirm the report.
He said the officials told him that quantities of the high- energy biscuits rushed in on the World Food Programme's first flights were sent to a military warehouse.
They were exchanged with what the officials said were "tasteless and low-quality" biscuits produced by the industry ministry to be handed out to victims of the cyclone, the foreign resident said in a telephone interview.
The WFP said it had not heard of its supplies disappearing.
"We've had no reports whatsoever about any incidents of this kind," Marcus Prior, a WFP spokesman, said in Bangkok.
A Burma government spokesman refused to comment. The allegations were impossible to confirm independently because of the massive restrictions imposed by the junta on journalists.
The military – which has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1962 – has taken control of most of the aid sent by other countries.
State television said the death toll had gone up by 2,335 to 34,273, and the number of missing stood at 27,838 after many of those listed as missing were accounted for. The United Nations says the actual death toll could be between 62,000 and 100,000.
Unicef estimates a third of those killed were children, based largely on population data from the affected areas as well as the scant information on those who survived.
"Our figures in the camps show a lot of adults, but very few children and very few elderly," said Care Australia's country director in Burma, Brian Agland.
"The worst-case scenario is that a lot of children may have lost their lives because of drowning," he said. "In one village there were 500 survivors and they were all adults. So that's the kind of despair people are living with, wondering where their children are."
State television said the navy's commander-in-chief, Rear-Admiral Soe Thein, told Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the US Pacific forces, that basic needs of the storm victims are being fulfilled and that "skilful humanitarian workers are not necessary".
Mr Agland, said members of his local staff brought back some of the rotting rice that's being distributed in the devastated Irawaddy Delta. "It's some of the poorest quality rice we've seen," he said. "It's affected by salt water and it's very old.
"It's unclear whether the rice, which is dark grey in colour and consists of very small grains, is coming from the government or from mills in the area or warehouses hit by the cyclone."
Many survivors also said they were either not getting any aid or were being handed rotten, mouldy rice. "There is obviously still a lot of frustration that this aid effort hasn't picked up pace" ten days after the cyclone hit, said Mr Horsey.
Cyclone Nargis devastated the delta on 2-3 May, washing away homes and submerging large tracts of land. Some two million survivors, mostly poor rice farmers, are living in abject misery, facing disease and starvation.
Tens of thousands of people throughout the delta are crammed into Buddhist monasteries and schools after arriving in towns that were on the breadline even before the disaster.
Lacking food, water and sanitation, they face the threat of killer diseases such as cholera. Heavy tropical rains added to their misery.
"Where I am now there's over 10,000 homeless people and it's pouring rain," Bridget Gardener of the International Red Cross said during a rare tour of the delta by a foreign aid official.
The government has also barred nearly all foreigners experienced in managing such catastrophes from going to the delta west of Rangoon, and is expelling those who have managed to go in.
Jean-Sebastien Matte, an emergency co-ordinator with Doctors Without Borders, said his staff have repeatedly been forced to return to Rangoon from the delta. Armed police checkpoints were set up on the roads to the delta, and all foreigners were being turned away by policemen who took down their names and passport numbers. "No foreigners allowed," a policeman said, after waving a car back.
EU call to bypass generalsFRANCE, Britain and Germany yesterday called for the world to deliver aid to cyclone victims in Burma – if necessary without the military junta's permission
"We have called for the 'responsibility to protect' to be applied in the case of Burma," Rama Yade, France's junior minister for human rights, told reporters as EU development ministers met to discuss emergency aid for Burma.
The little-used UN principle could allow the delivery of aid without the accord of the government, if the military rulers continue to bar foreign aid teams from entering the country.
Ms Yade said France, backed by the two other major EU powers, would put the proposal to the UN Security Council, but she acknowledged it did not have unanimous support among the 27 EU member states.
A first French attempt to have the Security Council adopt its idea of aid without authorisation was rebuffed last week by China, Vietnam, South Africa and Russia, but also Britain.
Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, called for the world to use all necessary means to help. "The UN charter opens some avenues if things cannot be resolved in order to get the humanitarian aid (to] arrive," he told reporters.
Asked if aid could be flown in without the approval of the Burmese authorities, he said: "Whatever is necessary to help the people who are suffering."
The full article contains 1051 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
