Myanmar agrees to admit foreign aid staff

Myanmar agrees to admit foreign aid staff

Way to go Myanmar/all foreign aid relief people.

Myanmar generals speak with forked-tongue...
:mad:
U.S. Ships May Abandon Myanmar Aid Efforts
WASHINGTON, May 28, 2008 - Still Denied Permission, Navy Vessels Will Likely Give Up Trying To Provide Relief Within Days

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The United States probably will withdraw a group of naval vessels from waters off the coast of Myanmar within days unless the government allows the ships to offload their relief supplies for cyclone victims, the senior commander of U.S. forces in the region said Wednesday. Navy Adm. Timothy Keating, chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, said he would discuss the matter this week with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Singapore, where they will attend an international security conference.

Keating said the group of ships, led by the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, has other scheduled commitments in the area, including a planned port visit to Hong Kong. They were in the Gulf of Thailand participating in a naval exercise when the cyclone struck Myanmar, also known as Burma, on May 2-3. “Absent a green light from Burmese officials, I don’t think she will be there for weeks," Keating told a Pentagon news conference, referring to the Essex. “Days, and then we’ll see."

The admiral said the Myanmar junta’s refusal to allow the Navy to provide relief is frustrating. He described the sailors and Marines aboard the Essex as “desperate” to provide help. “If they can’t help, they know they have other things that they joined the Navy and the Marine Corps to do, so they want to get on with that sort of thing," Keating said. “It is certainly frustrating to us at Pacific Command. Imagine how much more frustrating it is to the men and women on the ship."

More [url:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/28/world/main4132158.shtml[/url]

See also:

Cyclone Survivors Victimized By Myanmar Soldiers
May. 28, 2008 - Victimized Again: Cyclone Survivors Forced By Military To Work, Return To Destroyed Homes

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It’s not much, but the flimsy bamboo lean-to on the side of the road is all Aye Shwe has to keep his family dry. They lost their home to the cyclone and may soon be uprooted again _ this time by soldiers ordering them to leave. Three weeks after the storm, survivors say they are being victimized again, by a military regime that has forced some to return to flooded, collapsed homes and others to labor on reconstruction projects. Even Myanmar volunteers making the difficult trip into the Irrawaddy delta to deliver food and supplies to survivors are being stopped and detained for hours, and the government has started impounding cars.

“Where my house used to be is still filled with water up to my waist," said Aye Shwe, pointing to fields of rice paddies in the distance, under water as far as the eye could see. “How can I build a new house there?" The 52-year-old rice farmer’s mother was killed in the cyclone that left more than 134,000 people dead or missing, and the water buffaloes that were a mainstay of his livelihood drowned in the fierce storm surges.

Still, until this week he had more than many: He managed to fashion a shelter from bamboo poles lashed together with palm fronds laid over one side as a crude roof. His wife and six children huddled together Monday on its raised bamboo floor, sheltering from the searing heat and the downpours that now come daily as monsoon season gets under way. It’s location on the roadside outside the hard-hit delta town of Pyapon, a four-hour drive from Yangon, had given his family access to the Myanmar volunteers ferrying donated food, water and other aid from the country’s biggest city. Then the soldiers came and ordered the family and the hundreds of others camped out on the roadside to leave.

More [url:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/28/ap/world/main4133245.shtml[/url]

UN official blasts Burma gov’t.
:cool:
Top UN Official Accuses Burma of Obstructing Aid
02 June 2008 - The U.N.'s top human rights official, Louise Arbour, has lashed out at Burmese authorities for obstructing aid to victims of Cyclone Nargis. Arbour called into question Burma’s rights record in her final address to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

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Louise Arbour drew attention to the natural disasters in China and Burma, also known as Myanmar. She conveyed her condolences to the millions of victims of the earthquake that struck China and the powerful cyclone that ravaged parts of Burma. The High Commissioner condemned Burma’s apathetic response to Cyclone Nargis. She also said part of the blame can be placed on the international community for keeping silent in the face of the Burmese government’s human rights abuses. She acknowledged that no government would ever be fully ready to respond to all the needs of its population in the face of such catastrophic events,. Therefore, she said international assistance was crucial.

“It is the right of victims to expect such assistance and it is the duty of governments and the international community to do everything in their power to facilitate it," she said. “In the case of Myanmar, the obstruction to the deployment of such assistance illustrates the invidious effects of long-standing international tolerance for human rights violations that make this obstruction possible." The United Nations estimates two-and -one half million people have been affected by Cyclone Nargis, which hit Burma on May 2. In the aftermath of this disaster, the country’s military rulers refused to accept most foreign aid and refused to grant visas to the experts needed to coordinate a vast humanitarian operation. The generals have eased their stance in the last few days. But, the United Nations reports one-quarter of a million cyclone survivors have still not received international assistance.

In contrast, the High Commissioner commended the government of South Africa for taking action to protect the foreign migrants who came under recent attack. She praised the government’s decision not to deport the migrants. But, she had sharp words for the increasingly hard-line anti-immigration policies being enacted in Europe. She was particularly critical of the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi.

“In Europe, repressive policies, as well as xenophobic and intolerant attitudes, against irregular immigration and unwanted minorities is also of grave concern," she said. “Examples of these policies and attitudes are represented by the recent decision of the Government of Italy to criminalize illegal immigration and by the recent attacks against Roma settlements in Naples and Milan." Arbour warned delegates to the U.N. Human Rights Council against pursuing narrow parochial political agendas. She cautioned that skepticism about the Council as a champion of human rights has not been fully dispelled. She said the U.N. body was in danger of losing its reputation as the protector of human rights for the sake of achieving consensus.

[url:
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-06-02-voa46.cfm[/url]