Myanmar starts mass evictions from cyclone camps
"It is better that they move to their homes where they aremore stable," a government official said at one camp wherepeople have been told to clear out by 4 pm (10:30 a.m. Britishtime). "Here, they are relying on donations and it is notstable."
Locals and aid workers said 39 camps in the immediatevicinity of Kyauktan, 30 km (19 miles) south of Yangon, werebeing cleared out as part of a general eviction plan.
"We knew we had to go at some point but we had hoped formore support," 21-year-old trishaw driver Kyaw Moe Thu said ashe trudged out of the camp with his five brothers and sisters.
The youngest, a 2-½ year girl named Moe Win Kyah, wassheltered by the others under a pair of black umbrellas.
They had been given 20 bamboo poles and some tarpaulins tohelp rebuild their lives in the Irrawaddy delta, where 134,000people were left dead or missing by Cyclone Nargis on May 2.
"Right now, we are disappointed," Kyaw Moe Thu said. "Wewere promised 30 poles by the government. They told us we willget rice each month, but right now we have nothing."
Four weeks after the disaster, the United Nations saysfewer than one in two of the 2.4 million people affected by thecyclone have received any form of help from either thegovernment, or international or local aid groups.
Rumours are flying around the international aid communityin Yangon that the evictions are occurring in state-run refugeecentres across the delta.
The U.N., which has local and foreign aid workers in thedelta, said it did not know if that was the case.
"We certainly don't endorse premature return to where thereare no services, and any forced or coerced movement iscompletely unacceptable," U.N. spokeswoman Amanda Pitt said inBangkok.
The evictions come a day after official media in the formerBurma lashed out at offers of foreign aid, criticising donors'demands for access to the delta and saying cyclone victimscould "stand by themselves".
"The people from Irrawaddy can survive on self-reliancewithout chocolate bars donated by foreign countries," theKyemon newspaper said in a Burmese-language editorial.
The media is tightly controlled by the army and is believedto reflect the thinking of the top generals, who until now haveshown signs of growing, albeit grudging, acceptance of outsidecyclone assistance.
SCHOOLS DESTROYED
Nearly a week after junta leader Than Shwe promised toallow in "all" legitimate foreign aid workers, 45 remainingU.N. visa requests had been approved on Wednesday, but red tapeis still hampering access to the delta.
"It's particularly important that the Red Cross and theinternational NGOs are granted timely, free and unfetteredaccess to the delta," Terje Skavdal, a U.N. humanitarianco-ordinator, told a news conference in the Thai capital.
He said it now took only two days for U.N staff to getclearance for the delta, instead of two weeks, but other aidworkers were still facing obstacles.
The government has said the rescue and relief effort islargely over and it is focused on reconstruction.
Around Kyauktan, authorities are moving displaced peopleout of schools ahead of the start of a new term in June. Butaid workers said that could be delayed by a month in the delta.
The U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, said more than 4,000basic schools were either damaged or destroyed, affecting 1.1million students, according to government figures.
"I would put recovery and restoration of education servicesas a priority while relief activities are intensifying," UNICEFregional director Anupama Rao Singh told reporters in Bangkokafter visiting the delta.
"I think we are dealing with a humanitarian disaster ofpretty much the same magnitude" as the 2004 tsunami whichkilled around 168,000 in Indonesia's Aceh.
However, the level of aid to isolated army-ruled Myanmarstands in stark contrast to the tsunami, when governmentsaround the world promised $2 billion within the first week.
The New Light of Myanmar accused donors of being stingy,noting that the United Nations' "flash appeal" was still shortof its $201 million target nearly four weeks after thedisaster, which left 134,000 dead or missing.
The tone of the editorial is at odds with recent praise ofthe U.N. relief effort, but follows criticism of the junta'sextension this week of the five-year house arrest of oppositionleader Aung San Suu Kyi.
U.S. President George W. Bush said he was "deeply troubled"by the extension and called for the more than 1,000 politicalprisoners to be freed.
(Additional reporting by Ed Davies in BANGKOK)
(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Darren Schuettler andValerie Lee)