Myanmar Allows U.N. Aid But Snubs U.S.
U.S. Weighs Air-Dropping Food To Cyclone Victims But Gates Says Not Without Myanmar's OK
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Play CBS Video Video Bureaucracy Delays Myanmar Aid Aid workers fear that many more lives will be lost if Myanmar's leaders continue to prevent relief organizations from entering the isolated nation. Celia Hatton reports.
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Video Raising Funds For Myanmar American groups have raised millions of dollars for Myanmar. But as Bill Whitaker reports, the difficulty lies in bypassing the country's military regime to bring help to where it is most needed.
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Video Myanmar Shrouded In Mystery Katie Couric speaks with an unidentified freelance journalist about the situation in Myanmar and how government controls on information is making relief work much more difficult.
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Indonesian military personnel load aid onto an Indonesian army plane bound for Myanmar Thursday May 8, 2008 in Jakarta, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
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Passengers looks on as they are transported on a boat in Yangon, Myanmar, Wednesday, May 7, 2008. (AP)
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A victim is seen in the Pyarmalot river following Cyclone Nargis, in Labutta town, Ayeyarwaddy province, 105 miles southwest of Yangon on Sunday May 4, 2008. (AP)
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Residents line up for water after water shortage in Yangon, Myanmar, Wednesday, May 7, 2008, following devastating Cyclone Nargis' hit over the weekend. International aid began to trickle into Myanmar, but the stricken Irrawaddy delta remained cut off from the world. (AP)
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Airport workers load medical supplies on board an airline departing for Yangon, Myanmar at the Changi Airport on Wednesday May 7, 2008 in Singapore. The medical supplies were donated by the Singapore government to aid cyclone hit Myanmar. (AP Photo/Stefen Chow)
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Photos Cyclone Crashes Into Myanmar Aftermath of devastating and deadly storm that slammed into a densely populated delta.
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Fast Facts Burma Learn about the people, economy and history of Burma (aka Myanmar).
Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej offered to negotiate on Washington's behalf to persuade Myanmar's government to accept U.S. help - seen as crucial because it is so well-equipped to reach isolated communities by helicopter.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband asked Myanmar's junta to "lift all restrictions on the distribution of aid."
The Association of Southeast Nations appealed to the international community to keep sending aid through Thailand.
"Please keep the help coming, keep the contributions coming, and if you have to, go to Thailand, park there and wait for redistribution from there," said ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan.
The U.S. military sent more humanitarian supplies and equipment to a staging area in Thailand on Thursday. A C-17 transport plane with water and food landed Thursday, joining the two C-130s in place, Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said at the Pentagon. Another C-130 loaded with supplies was on its way, she said.
The Navy also has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in any relief effort, including an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters aboard.
China, Myanmar's closest ally, urged the military junta to work with the international community. The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said some donors were delaying aid for fear it would be siphoned off to the army.
The World Food Program's regional director, Anthony Banbury, indicated the United Nations had similar concerns.
"We will not just bring our supplies to an airport, dump it and take off," he said.
So far, the United Nations has recorded donations to Myanmar relief totaling $25 million from 28 nations, the European Union and charities. An additional $25 million has been pledged.
Myanmar's state media said Cyclone Nargis killed at least 22,997 people and left 42,019 missing, mostly in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta. Shari Villarosa, who heads the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because safe food and water were scarce and unsanitary conditions widespread.
Asked if that figure was conceivable, Tim Costello, a CEO of World Vision Australia, said hours after arriving in Yangon: "Sadly, I think it is."
There were eerie echoes of the 2004 tsunami, where the number of fatalities in the hardest hit nation, Indonesia, was doubling every day for nearly two weeks, he said during a telephone press conference.
U.N. officials estimated as many as 1 million people were left homeless in Myanmar, which also is known as Burma.
Entire villages in the delta were still submerged from the storm, and bloated corpses could be seen stuck in the mangroves. Some survivors stripped clothes off the dead. People wailed as they described the horror of the torrent swept ashore by the cyclone.
"I found it hard to hang on," said Ko Zaw Oo, a farmer in his 30s, who told World Vision he tried to cling to a coconut tree with his family as he watched his home break apart around him.
"Finally I had to let go of my 4-year-old," he said, shaking with emotion and tears, adding that only 70 of the 300 people living in his small township survived.
The World Health Organization has received reports of malaria outbreaks in the worst-affected area, and said fears of waterborne illnesses surfacing due to dirty water and poor sanitation also remained a concern.
In Yangon, the country's largest city, the cyclone blew off the roof of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and cut the electricity to her dilapidated lakeside bungalow, where she is under house arrest, a neighbor said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Stricken villagers living in surrounding areas complained that they had received no government assistance and were relying on aid from Buddhist monasteries.
Myanmar's state television Thursday showed Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein distributing food packages to the sick and injured in the delta and soldiers dropping food over villages. The date of the distribution was not given.
Although most Yangon residents were preoccupied with trying to restore their lives, activists wrote fresh graffiti on overpasses, including "X" marks - a symbol for voting "no" in a referendum Saturday on a new military-backed constitution.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Myanmar's rulers to postpone voting and focus on cyclone relief, saying he was "deeply concerned about the welfare of the people of Myanmar at this time of national tragedy."
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 102 CommentsPosted by AL2008 at 10:36 AM : May 09, 2008
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oh come on! how can you expect the ''administration'' to do anything to would mean to police the planet, when the ''adminsitration'' IS AUTOMATICALLY labeled a facist, a nazi, a regime when they deal with any nation..
THE PROBLEM HERE IS MOST BLEEDING HEART LIBERALS HATES THE GOVT..BUT IS SO INCOMPETENT THAT THEY NEED THE GOVT TO CONTROL THEM..if you want to stop this..THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT..if you hate the war on OIL then stop using effing oil...
GET IT YET??
Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot
A Future of the Brave
Posted by Humanavance at 07:09 AM : May 09, 2008
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what a crock of liberal bulls*hit!!!
However, since that isn''t likely to happen and since they don''t want our aid, let''s use the money to help out all the people across the midwest who continue to hammered by tornados here in America.
A C02 tax is not going to change the climate. If it is money we need to change the climate, just go on over to the Treasury Department and have them print more of it up. Make sure they don''t print it on paper, that is bad for the enviornment.
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How long must we sit idly by while our mother continues to suffer from the warming taking place at a feverish pace? How long must our mother suffer before we have proper c02 taxes put into place? How long must the destruction of mother earth take place before we finally put responsible plans into action? How long must we wait until we beef up our corn ethanol production? At least Obama wants to cut c02 pollution by 80%; he is definitely our best hope.
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We the people call upon our leaders to implement a comprehensive antiglobal warming strategy at once and work in coordination with state and federal officials; these cyclones and storms continue to worsen and the quicker we stop the warming the sooner we will see these storms cease. We need action now.
Reed let me expand on my statement if I may. That mayor was not responsible for the nations poor. He is responsible for what happened in NO after the storm. The chocolate statement likley took millions of aid off the table. People just dont want to hear that stuff. He was inserting himself to the country with his vision of a rebuilt NO and it was not taken well by the people with the power to rebuild it. So now the lower (below sea level) areas just sit there and rot. Likley to toxic to rebuild on anyway. The big mouth should have kept his mouth shut but no he wanted his one minute of glory that did not pan out so well in the end. NO has changed and will never be the same again. A fact he is going to have to live with. It will be a city not Vanilla chocolate or strawberry.
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Posted by NonayaBiness at 03:52 AM : May 09, 2008
- I wanted to expand on this. If someone shot us down for delivering aid, I certainly would feel horrible for any service members involved, and their families.
However, I think THIS is the type of thing worth possibly risking a few lives for rather than the 4 thousand plus we''ve already lost to an unjust and unnecessary war.
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Posted by maedean at 07:35 PM : May 08, 2008
- Yeah, I see it both ways. I get your point. Perhaps we should save all that food and water for the legitimate working class citizens of our own country (who didn''t overbuy their homes causing the mortgage crisis) who are being laid off and losing their livlihoods all because of Bush''s immoral war.
I feel really sorry for the people who are suffering there. Cyclones have happened in the past 40 years that have killed hundreds of thousands in the vicinity of Myanmar (namely Bangladesh).
The US should not try to force aid on a government that plainly doesn''t want it. Let the UN take care of it, it''s not the US'' place to welcome themselves in when the "junta" does not want them in their country.
It also prevents the planting of US spies, and also prevents the recruiting of future fake "terrorists", that would be used by the US as an excuse to invade and occupy their country.
It has been said that if one "shakes hands with the devil, one finds that he doesn''t lose his grip easily".
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Posted by excoachken
Yes, Thats it blame it all on Bush. I really cant wait to see if Obama wins the Presidency how he will handle everything just purrfectly. We''ll see and then alot of us will say we told you so. My job is secure for the next ten years. Go ahead and lect the junior idiot. i dont give a ***. i''m tired of hearing how great he will run things. well i hope he wins let see.
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