Monday, May 12, 2008

Burmese military controls aid

HEAVY RAINS EXPECTED TO FURTHER CHALLENGE RELIEF EFFORTS THIS WEEK

MA NGAY GYI, Burma - When one of Burma's best-known movie stars, Kyaw Dhyu, traveled through the Irrawaddy Delta in recent days to deliver aid to the victims of the May 3 cyclone, a military patrol stopped him as he was handing out bags of rice.

"The officer told him, 'You cannot give directly to the people,' " said Tin Win, the village headman of the stricken city of Dedaye, who had been counting on the rice to feed 260 refugees who sleep in a large Buddhist prayer hall.

The politics of food aid - deciding who gets to deliver assistance to those homeless and hungry after the cyclone - is not just confined to the dispute between the military junta and Western governments and outside relief agencies.

Read Full Article

No comments: