mr-news-090709.pdf

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HEADLINES
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NEWS ON REFUGEES

Burma Rebuilding Uneven After Cyclone

MYANMAR: Lack of cash slows Nargis recovery

Arakanese Refugee Assaulted in Bangladesh

Chin Famine Aid Live Concert in three European countries

 

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NEWS ON REFUGEES
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Burma Rebuilding Uneven After Cyclone

By JOHN HEILPRIN / AP WRITER Wednesday, July 8, 2009

 

KYON DA VILLAGE, Burma — As the UN helicopter skimmed above the placid Irrawaddy Delta, Burma’s military junta was putting the final touches on its showcase village.

 

Throngs of people lined the muddy walkways of Kyon Da village, a relief camp erected in this cyclone-hit area, while others stayed in their homes—neat rows of small houses made out of dried palm and matted bamboo.

The new houses on stilts replaced the plastic tents and stacks of supplies put on display for visitors a year earlier, after Cyclone Nargis devastated the delta in May 2008.

For last weekend’s visit by UN officials, some villagers smiled, and their kids sported freshly starched and ironed white linen garments. Many of the women and children wore Thanaka, a cosmetic used by Burmese women for 2,000 years—golden-colored tree bark that is ground, made into paint and used to draw circles on the cheeks and even their ears.

About 1,000 homes collapsed and more than 100 people died in Kyon Da when the cyclone struck.

The angry waters that swallowed 138,000 lives in the cyclone have receded. Seen from above, where there had been a monolith of shimmering water was now a patchwork of rice field and border, river and shoreline, muddy pond and gray cloud.

Gone were the endless stretches of flooded rice fields and islands of destroyed homes with a few people standing on the rooftops. It affected more than two million, leaving a quarter-million homeless.

The biggest health threats remain HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, according to the International Organization for Migration, which began partnering with Myanmar’s government in 2005. In the past year IOM-led medical teams treated 110,613 people in 858 of the affected villages.

Local medical officials in Kyon Da Village began to explain to a reporter last Saturday how the clinics were all busy, with the village and the broader Irrawaddy Delta region suffering from a high number of respiratory infections.

But after government minders began listening in, the medical officials suddenly seemed to lose their ability to speak English. End of conversation.

Residents spoke of some improved health conditions—fewer cases of diarrhea and several new clinics nearby. Some other improvements were obvious, but this was the camp that the xenophobic junta that rules Burma wanted the world to see.

“Clearly, they are living in their own world,” a senior UN official along for the village inspection said of Burma’s ruling junta, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid angering authorities.

Many Western nations haven’t fully opened their wallets to the UN’s three-year, $691 million recovery plan, lacking trust in Burma or not wanting to provide too much help to an authoritarian regime, a senior UN humanitarian official said on condition of anonymity to protect his relationship with Burmese authorities.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s first trip to Burma more than a year earlier helped overcome the reluctance for which the junta was widely condemned in granting foreign aid agencies access in the first weeks after the disaster, which almost certainly added to the death toll.

But to focus on securing cooperation from Burma’s government with various humanitarian agencies, Ban dropped any appeals to the ruling generals to improve their human rights’ record or to release jailed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and thousands of other political prisoners.

Ban’s visit last weekend was meant to make up for that. He held two rare meetings with the junta chief, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, but was not allowed to see the 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has been detained by the ruling generals for nearly 14 of the past 20 years.

Suu Kyi is now on trial, charged with violating her house arrest, and faces five years in prison if convicted in a trial that has sparked global outrage.

On a brief visit to Kyon Da Village carefully scripted by Burmese regime, the UN chief was haunted by the memory of a baby girl he encountered here a year ago. “She was only one day old,” Ban mused aloud.

He had seen the mother living in a tent with the girl, hours after her birth.

He’d seen another girl, too, just 19 days old, sick and clinging to life, but lacking medical support. He’d told the mothers not to lose hope, the United Nations was there to help.

But the UN’s World Food Program, which has operated in Burma for 15 years, still cannot muster 44 percent of the $79 million it says is needed over three years. The World Health Organization still lacks 57 percent of $42 million in projected needs for 325 townships.

Ban wasn’t able to determine the whereabouts of those fledgling lives he’d seen the year before. Instead, he and his entourage—top aides and two journalists—got a snapshot that showed some improvements while masking remaining problems.

Ban, who carried the same message as last year that the UN was there to help and keep hope alive, said he was satisfied “the government has taken necessary measures.”

Nearly a quarter-million people in remote villages rely on boat deliveries of clean drinking water, rice fields remain bare or contaminated with salt from the floodwaters, and food handouts are increasingly scarce.

Schools are rebuilt but short of teachers, and a half-million people still live in the most basic of shelters.

http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16287

 

************************************************************* MYANMAR: Lack of cash slows Nargis recovery

YANGON, 8 July 2009 (IRIN)

 

A three-year recovery plan for survivors of Cyclone Nargis remains severely underfunded: of the US$691 million requested under the post-Nargis recovery and preparedness plan (PONREPP), just $100 million has been pledged.

“Only a limited amount has been released,” Bishow Parajuli, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar, told IRIN in Yangon, the former capital.

“On behalf of the humanitarian community working in the cyclone-affected communities, I call upon the continued support from the international community to help us help the people, as a supplement to the efforts undertaken by the authorities,” he said.

Of the nine sectors outlined in the plan – aimed at ensuring a smooth transition from emergency relief and early recovery to sustainable medium-term recovery – agriculture and shelter remain the least funded.

 

Of the $174 million requested for shelter, $50 million has been received, while for agriculture virtually nothing has been paid out, against a $189 million request for livelihoods.

“We have received hardly anything,” Tesfai Ghermazien, a senior emergency and rehabilitation coordinator with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Myanmar and leader of the agriculture cluster, told IRIN.

NGOs are already struggling, with some, such as Help from Germany, having no choice but to leave altogether; more are likely to follow unless cash is forthcoming.

 

According to FAO, inadequate funding means insufficient productive inputs, technical support, adaptive post-harvest technology and less capacity building – with repercussions for food and nutrition security as well as income.

“Agriculture is the main source of livelihoods in the delta and possibly close to 90 percent of the population relies directly or indirectly on agricultural activities,” Ghermazien told IRIN.

Despite efforts over the past year, assistance for livelihoods has been far less than needed just to bring farming households back to pre-Nargis levels, he said: “Many farming households are trapped in a vicious debt cycle. There are pockets of food-insecure areas and the poverty level is far [greater] than desired.”

 

Comparative disasters

Following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, a disaster on a similar scale to Nargis in terms of impact on the population of Aceh in Indonesia, Aceh received more than $5 billion in international assistance in the first three years.

The PONREPP’s cost, together with the initial emergency response already delivered, represents only about a fifth of the international community’s response to Aceh.

PONREPP averages $230 million per year for three years, representing $31 per capita per year for the delta’s population (about 7.35 million people).

“Myanmar receives very little humanitarian support per capita,” Mark Canning, Britain’s ambassador to Myanmar, said. “The UK has contributed substantially to the Nargis response and in other areas like health, education and livelihoods, and would like to see more donors working in the country,” the Tripartite Core Group (TCG) quoted him as saying in May.

And while he underlined that as a major donor the UK was committed to keeping its humanitarian activity and political views separate, he added that, like it or not, political developments inevitably affected donor perceptions.

The PONREPP – prepared by the TCG – comprising the Myanmar government, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and UN – runs from January 2009 through December 2011.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85180

 

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Arakanese Refugee Assaulted in Bangladesh

7/8/2009

An Arakanese urban refugee is suffering from injuries and a lack of medical care after he was assaulted by local youths and police last Friday on the beach in Cox’s Bazar in southern Bangladesh.

The victim’s UNHCR ID has his name listed as Khine Soe, a Burmese urban refugee with ID No. 393-07C00012.

“Some six locals blocked my way and abused me while I was going to look for my children having a picnic on the beach. They started to fight me when I asked them why they were treating me in that manner,” said Khine Soe.

He added that he fled the group after receiving a knife wound on his left hand and headed to the UNHCR office near the beach to seek assistance. However, he was arrested by police at the gate of the UNHCR office while he was imploring the office’s security guards to let him enter the compound.

He said that he was cuffed tightly with rope and thrown into the police van after police beat and kicked him outside the UNHCR gate, without any first aid for his bleeding wound.

“The policemen beat and kicked me when I asked them why I was arrested. They also tied me with a rope very tightly with my hand bleeding although I requested them not to tie me up because I was in a lot of pain from my injuries,” he said, showing the bruises on his wrists from the rope he was tied with, as well as black and blue bruises on his body.

He said that he lost consciousness in the police van due to the bleeding and hard beating by the police. When he came to, he found himself in the hospital. He was then quickly discharged and allowed to go home by the police.

“I still feel a lot of pain on my whole body, especially on my hands and back,” he said. “I am now taking medication from a private nurse,” adding that the UNHCR was not seriously concerned with his case and was not providing any aid for his medical care or medications.

According to other urban refugees who know the victim, he is a good man who is always helping his fellow refugees and asylum-seekers when they are in trouble.

http://www.narinjara.com/details.asp?id=2259

 

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Chin Famine Aid Live Concert in three European countries

8 July 2009

 

The Chin Famine Aid Live Concert (also known as Mautam concert) will be staged in three European countries from July 11, 2009 to help Chin people in western Burma who are affected by famine.

The live concert is to be organized by Chin communities in Europe and performances will be held in Denmark, Norway and Germany. The singers are Sung Tin Par, Dawt Hlei Hniang, Cung Lian Thawng and Solomon Menrihai, who are very popular in Burma.  They will raise money to help Chin people reeling under famine.

The first show will be in Denmark on July 11 and 12, after which it will be in Norway on July 20 and 26. In Germany it will be held on August 1, 2009.

The natural phenomena of bamboo flowering happens once in 50 years and is called ‘Mautam’ in the local language. It leads to rats eating the bamboo flowers and multiplying. The rats in turn eat crops resulting in famine. Chin people have been facing the effects of the phenomena since 2006 and are living through famine conditions. No one knows how long the effect will last therefore, Chin people are fleeing to neighbouring countries every day.

Chin people are supported not only by Chin communities abroad but also helped by NGOs around the world. However, help is not very effective because of lack of good communication and transportation. In addition such benevolence is not taken kindly to by the Burmese military junta.

The regime continues to ignore any crisis in the country, especially in Chin state. In Chin state, therefore, 85 percent of the population is in debt while trying to earn their livelihood as reported by the World Food Program.

The first Mautam Concert was held in 2008 and February 2009 in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia by a combination of Burmese singers and Mizoram state singers from India for aiding Chin people.

http://www.khonumthung.com/chin-famine-aid-live-concert-in-three-european-countries/

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http://khitpyaing.org/news/july09/080709e.php

 

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