US official: 1 shipment to be allowed to Myanmar

[uppityperson]

Source: AP

A Pentagon spokesman says the military junta that governs Myanmar has agreed to allow a single U.S. cargo aircraft to bring in relief supplies for victims of a cyclone.

Marine Major Stuart Upton, the spokesman, told reporters Friday: "We hope that this is the beginning of broader support between the United States and Burma to help the Burmese people."

Earlier, Ky Luu, director of the U.S. office of foreign disaster assistance, said that skilled aid workers were being forced to sit on the sidelines as victims of last week's cyclone die. His comments reflect the mounting frustration among the United States and other countries as they wait for permission from the military-led government to begin trying to help.

Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h5R6u5LCUOrQZA9iHHkVKNRd-GcAD90I7P3O2

[Trillo]

1. I wonder who gets the food?

Everyone who needs it? Or just some junta-cooperative cronies.

[excess_3]

25. sold to the highest bidder n/t

[Robbien]

2. Blogger from that region

“If the USA, or any country, wants to offer humanitarian aid, I think that is wonderful. But the aid shouldn’t come with strings attached, or accompanied by lectures. Just help the people that need it, and keep your political and religious agenda to yourself. But that seems to be an impossible task for the “holier than thou” contingent. You would think those idiots in the Bush administration would “get it” by now. But no, they continue their same style of inflammatory, derisive diplomacy;

http://weblogs.thingsasian.com/tablogs/page/dgilliland?entry=b_storm_updates_and_political

Words matter. Bush and Mrs Bush should just stfu.

[Trillo]

Myanmar seizes UN aid supplies, 'not ready' to let in US

Myanmar seizes UN aid supplies, 'not ready' to let in US

1 hour ago

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's military leaders seized aid shipments headed for cyclone survivors and told the top U.S. diplomat there Friday that they're not ready to let in American aid workers despite warnings the country is on the verge of a medical catastrophe.

Another 4 inches of rain was forecast to fall next week as more than 1 million people waited for food, clean water, shelter and medicine to reach them. Diplomats and aid groups warned number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of illnesses and said thousands of children may have been orphaned.

The U.N. World Food Program said two planeloads of supplies containing enough high-energy biscuits to feed 95,000 people were seized Friday, prompting the world body to say it was suspending food-aid flights.

read more @
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5greyFH3qkj9mc9oagSoulgjN4KHgD90I7J3G1

[Robbien]

9. They are allowing Italian, Indian, Thailand and several other countries

entry into Myanmar and accept their aid.

The top US diplomat frequently cited in these news articles seems to be inflaming the situation and doing much more harm than necessary.

[uppityperson]

10. I know. I'm glad they are accepting whatever from whomever, agree no strings should be attached.

Aid SHOULD be given without strings attached, because we are all world citizens.

[seriousstan]

13. Wrong, aid should not be given to a government that then lets people die or live

depending upon their political views. Outside aid workers should assure the aid is distributed by need. I you want to blindly aid and support a genocidal government, that is your business. I disagree.

[uppityperson]

14. saying aid should be given without political strings attached=supporting genocidal gvt?

good lord, that is a reach. And the opposite of what I man.

Aid should not be given with political strings attached but given to those who need it.

[Robbien]

17. Many of the areas hit by the Tsunami were ruled by military juntas

Aceh for one was almost starved to death when the military junta took the food aid and sold it on the black market.

The only difference between the Tsunami aid and this hurricane aid is that our corporate media was silent on the Tsunami juntas and is screaming at the top of their lungs on the Myanmar juntas.

Our elites didn't want anything from the Tsunami juntas, but they want access to oil from the Myanmar junta.

[Trillo]

16. I was just watching Al-Jazerra (satellite TV)

and they ran a skit about a Myanmar-based aid agency where displaced and some naked people have been showing up. They claimed to be handing out clothes and providing one bowl of rice per day. They asserted there has been NO HELP from their government for clothing or food.

So the various reports appear contradictory.

[Robbien]

18. Interesting

That exact same story was in the Indian news sites on Tuesday. It seems to be making the rounds.

Yes, various countries are being allowed in to help but the main world relief organizations are all under the jurisdiction of the US (the UN included) so the aid getting through is not as widespread as it should be. Myanmar is being hurt because it is sitting on huge pools of oil and natural gas.

[seriousstan]

8. Quoting one pro-genicidal government patsy doesn't prove a point.

[Robbien]

11. I believe the Myanmar people are caught between a rock and a hard place

Their genocidal government's junta propped up by Chevron

and the US government who wants more ownership of Myanmar oil


The Bushies couldn't give a flying f* if the junta kills off the Myanmar people.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. 
[link:www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html|Click
here] to review the message board rules.

[uppityperson]

24. Well, you sure told him.

Want to be my new buddy? With verbal skills like that, I am sure you will really be an asset to DU.

[Robbien]

26. I see you are new to DU

But using profanity to curse against another DU member is against the rules and will get you kicked out.

Please leave the nasty manners at the door before you come in.

[SunDrop23]

3. How can the junta actions not be called genocide?

[Robbien]

7. When that junta is paid by Chevron Oil whose main supporters are the GOP

that junta's actions will not be called a genocide.

Condi Rice was for 10 years a director on the board of Chevron. She even had a Chevron oil tanker named after her (although the company, when it realized that this was a political liability for Rice, later changed it to the Altair Voyager because of the "unnecessary attention" the naming caused).

And the Myanmar government -- a military junta that has ruled with an iron fist, despite the best efforts of pro-democracy agitators like Aung San Su Kyi and the recent protests by Buddhist monks -- is being propped up almost entirely by Chevron.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/05/09/condi-rice-and-bush-do-the-katrina-thing-in-myanmar/#more-23425

[Psephos]

21. You could mention that France's Total and Thailand's PTTEP are co-partners with Chevron

More information is better information.

[razorman]

4. The Burmese government is deliberately trying to kill their people.

My doctor went there with Doctors Without Borders to help after the 2004 tsunami. He returned two weeks later in disgust, because the government was preventing them from treating people. He told me that since the people of that region were not pro-government, and were sitting on oil-rich land, the government was letting them die to get them out of the way. It appears that the same thing is happening now.
I am not sure what we in the west can do, if they will not allow aid to flow in. Short of a war, how can we force their government to cooperate? My heart goes out to those poor people.

[uppityperson]

5. It is a paranoid gvt, and they are afraid of letting USA/France/etc

in because those countries might not leave.

Here's a link to another DU topic on this. I'm glad that they are letting some stuff through and yes, those poor people.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3260432

[razorman]

6. I saw a report this morning that said aid shipments were being confiscated.

[niyad]

12. how many of us remember that bushie refused help from cuba after katrina?

that clueless drunk has a lot of nerve saying anything about another country.

[nashville_brook]

19. not just Cuba --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3263833



Unable to deal with an unexpected outpouring of post-Katrina assistance,
Washington did not accept most donations from other governments.


WASHINGTON -- Only a small fraction of the more than $800 million in Hurricane Katrina assistance offered by foreign governments was used by federal agencies, according to documents released Sunday by a private watchdog group.

Rejected were the offers of foreign governments to send medical teams, search-and-rescue units, body bags, bottled water, food, fuel and even offers of specially trained rescue dogs from Poland, according to documents obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Also turned down or stalled by bureaucratic delays were offers of two cruise ships by the Greek government for use as medical facilities and to house workers and displaced residents.

The United States didn't have a system to process so many simultaneous offers of assistance, and if another disaster of the scale of Katrina occurred, it still would be unable to accept most aid, said Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director.

[TheMadMonk]

28. I call bullshit on "Unable to process..."

Once upon a time it was a case of everyone just pitching in and doing what they could do.

Yes, it is conceivable that some people suffered because they were missed or overlooked in the confusion, and that others might have been over-serviced. But dicking around until all the 'I's are dotted and 'T's crossed and a plan for optimal delivery is arrived at simply ensures that everyone suffers equally.

Oh and that corporate darlings benefit enormously.


It is a sad sad world in which the only ones willing to risk their precious skins do so for animal rights, whilst those who would (or should) fight for human rights swallow whole the bullshit propaganda about safety and equitable/optimal disbursement of resources, all the while they wring their hands and decry bureaucratic obstructionism, but not one in a hundred lifted a finger to actually oppose it.

FFS, STFU, pick up an aid package and start walking. DARE the opposing forces to open fire.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure." Thomas Jefferson.

If those who had aid to offer had simply marched upon New Orleans there is no possible way in the world that the outcome could have been worse than what did happen in the aftermath. The first Blackwater bullet fired to stop them would have been the crack of doom for the Bush Administration. This nightmare that is America could have been over more than two years ago, if even just a handful of true patriots had been willing to give the Tree of Liberty the refreshment it so desperately needs.

And the same applies here. The best possible outcome for the peoples of Burma would stem from the Junta opening fire upon aid workers armed with nothing but food and medicine.

But instead we will continue to do nothing but flap our lips to express our horror at the needless deaths of true innocents, whilst distancing ourselves from all blame.

So again I call BULLSHIT! This time upon ourselves. We who claim powerlessness, when in truth we are accomplices and enablers for those who would profit from the misery of others. We are not powerless. We simply would prefer to see a thousand, or a million others come to harm than risk our own precious skins in their defense.

If tyrany and the black shadow that has fallen across this world is to be lifted then we must willingly spend our own live to see it lifted and not allow those we claim to oppose to spend the lives of others as an example to keep us properly cowed.

( edit: code error )

[twiceshy]

20. Why does this always come back to Katrina

This is an order of magnitude worse, 1 million people could die. The Junta is doing everything to keep the aid out. And oh yeah, I've been to NO post-Katrina and know the situation.

[TheMadMonk]

29. Why shouldn't it?

The comparison being made is of the deliberate obstructionism by those charged with (or who have assumed) the responsibility for those affected.

The victims of Katrina were simply more fortunate in having building codes that ensured that some structures remained standing for shelter, well made roads by which they could escape and hypermarts full of food. They had at least some access to the trappings of civilisation.

[Contradistinction]

15. What's the problem?

Fine, they don't want it...Fly it back to the US & give it to the homeless shelters here. I could give a wet fart. Sorry but I don't get the problem.

[Psephos]

22. You don't get the problem because it's an abstraction to you

Give this a quick read, and see if you get the problem.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-river-of-death-825404.html?r=RSS

Here's a before and after shot of less than one tenth of one percent of the affected area.



People are without houses or towns, food or energy, roads or even dry ground, surrounded by tens of thousands of floating and rotting corpses, attacked by hordes of bugs, and without any information about what to do, where to find resources, or what's coming next. The social fabric is completely destroyed, and it's every man, woman and child for him/herself in a vicious and lawless chaos.

Keep your fucking wet fart to yourself.

[TheMadMonk]

27. Enjoy your stay. May it be a brief one. nt