Burma Insight

ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said on 18 June 2008 that "We are being baptised by Cyclone Nargis," and kept on saying "nearly 300,000 volunteers, have been given full support and reached the areas where they wanted to go."

Surin’s comment is misleading and covering the truth, in reality only hundred on the ground and they cannot move freely and face restriction.

ASEAN knows that current military regime butchered more than 3000 peaceful demonstrators in 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters were ambushed by junta in 2003, and soldiers killed peaceful Buddhist monks in 2007 Saffron revolution. Recently, May 2 and 3, 2008 military junta’s slow and systematic delaying respond to the cyclone Nargis victims to do relief work and to accept aid in, ASEAN witnesses it and trying to cover it up for Burmese generals.

Burma Democratic Concern condemned ASEAN Secretary General’s comment on relief work carrying out in Burma and urged its leaders to press more on Burmese Generals rather than advocating for them.

[News from Aljazeera on 25 June 2008]

Food aid to victims of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar will run out in less than three weeks unless more international donations are allowed to come through, the UN has warned.

The UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs says millions of survivors from the cyclone in early May are still without basic food supplies.

The UN warning contrasts with an optimistic assessment from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean), which said on Tuesday that the needs of cyclone survivors were being met.

The regional bloc includes Myanmar among its 10-nation membership.

An Asean assessment report on the cyclone is due in mid-July but speaking in Yangon on Tuesday the group's secretary-general said assessment teams had had "unlimited and unfettered" access to the disaster region.

"The basic needs of the victims are being met for their early recovery," Surin Pitsuwan said.[source:Aljazeera]

For more information: www.bdcburma.org