Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta attacked "unscrupulous"citizens and foreign media on Friday for presenting a falsepicture of the devastation left by Cyclone Nargis as expertsbegan mapping the extent of the disaster.
The New Light of Myanmar, the mouthpiece of the rulinggenerals, said people had been selling video footage "ofinvented stories" to foreign news organisations which tarnishedthe country's image.
"The people who are in touch with the situation feel thatthe despicable and inhumane acts by local and foreignanti-government groups and self-centred persons and theirexploiting of the storm victims are absolutely obnoxious," thenewspaper said.
Bootleg copies of DVDs showing the devastation in thehardest-hit Irrawaddy delta have been snapped up on the streetsof the former capital Yangon and smuggled out of the country.
Newspaper, television and radio are tightly controlled bythe military government, which also severely restrictsinternational media access to the former Burma.
"Those foreign news agencies are issuing groundless newsstories with the intention of tarnishing the image of Myanmarand misleading the international community into believing thatcyclone victims do not receive any assistance," the New Lightof Myanmar said.
Police detained well-known activist/comedian Zarganar onThursday who was involved in a private aid effort for cyclonevictims. They also seized his computer, several banned filmsand records of the cyclone damage.
Dozens of delta villages, some visited by Reuters, have yetto receive any relief assistance since the May 2 cyclone sweptover the area and Yangon, leaving 134,000 dead or missing and2.4 million people in desperate need of help.
The newspaper report accused media organisations and localpeople of "luring naive storm victims" with leading questionson their living conditions a week after the junta beganevicting thousands of people from state-run camps out ofapparent fear that the tented villages could become permanent.
The first major criticism of foreign media coverage of thedisaster followed a recent report on a satellite televisionnetwork of bootleg video footage being sold at a Yangon market.
A team of 200 international disaster and aid experts fannedout across the delta to assess the extent of the cyclonedestruction and gauge whether farmers would be able to plantcrucial monsoon rice crops by the end of July.
"They have begun looking at areas today and will reportback in the middle of next month," a spokeswoman for theASEAN-UN "Emergency Rapid Assessment Team" told Reuters.
Plans to accelerate the delivery of aid to the delta weredelayed on Friday when poor weather grounded seven U.N. WorldFood Programme helicopters in neighbouring Thailand.
The helicopters, part of a fleet of 10 approved by thejunta two weeks ago, are urgently needed by relief workers, butonly one has so far arrived in Yangon.
(Writing by Rob Taylor; Editing by Darren Schuettler)
