Myanmar needs help by Claudia Sonea

For Myanmar tragedy is becoming a characteristic. After the suppressing of Buddhists monks and other freedom fighter and all the dictatorship, the country was hit by a cyclone on May 3 and caused numerous deaths. Like everything the military regime does, even the death toll announced was untrustworthy, the Red Cross estimating on Wednesday a much higher figure. The scarcity of food, clean water and the lack of medical treatment can lead to an increase of the number. Myanmar residents have the misfortune of being politically isolated. Because of the junta that is afraid of foreign interfering, the outside aid is mostly impossible. On top of that, the tropical depression in the Bay of Bengal represents a danger of transforming into a cyclone, while Myanmar's government forbade foreign aid experts. It is not sure whether the junta is applying a policy of isolation or is just too proud and wants to show in spite of all critics that it can handle everything as Myanmar's Prime Minister, Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, confessed to Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. Although the delta was the most affected, foreigners are restricted to Yangon, the biggest city, but they granted a Thai medical team to go into the delta on Friday. Also the junta said it would grant permission to 160 relief workers from countries like India, China, Bangladesh and Thailand. Yet, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes stressed out that it is not sufficient and Burma should open all of his borders for outside workers. The junta's chairman, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, refused to talk to him, answer his phones or letters. Matthew Cochrane said that the figures showed by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are not very reliable as they were pure estimations meant to offer an image to the donors and their partners. It estimated that the number of deaths is somewhere between 68,833 and 127,990. U.N. specialists fixed the number somewhere near and revealed that together with other voluntary groups had helped 270,000 of the affected people. Therefore, not surprisingly U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon fixed a meeting in order to get solutions to fast speed aiding. What would you do to help?

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080514/ap_on_re_as/myanmar;_ylt=AqRQtnUix2cRYKsd.Mc.xDms0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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edited by Zuzana Lakostikova