Aid groups cautious on Myanmar opening

AFP, BANGKOK
Saturday, May 24, 2008, Page 1
　

International aid groups reacted cautiously yesterday to the announcement that Myanmar would allow all foreign relief workers into the country, stressing that details on the ground were still unclear.

While they welcomed the news following talks between junta leader Senior General Than Shwe and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the groups said that the relief effort needed more than simply foreigners flying in to the main city Yangon.

“The important issue is whether we can leave Yangon or not,” Paul Risley, spokesman for the World Food Programme, said in Thailand.

The secretive junta has all but sealed off the southern Irrawaddy Delta hardest hit by the storm on May 2 and May 3, which left at least 133,000 people dead or missing and approximately 2.5 million in dire need of immediate aid.

Relief organizations have said that outside experts are needed to oversee complicated disaster management operations and that, until now, mostly local staff have been let into the disaster zone.

“We still have to clarify what this means — who can get in, who can go where,” John Sparrow of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

“Does it mean that the people we have standing by can enter the country? Does it mean we can gear up and go full throttle?” Sparrow said. “It isn’t clear right now.”

“We’re cautiously optimistic, but we have to see how it works in practical terms,” said James East, spokesman for World Vision — one of dozens of aid groups whose work has been restricted by the junta.

“The debate for the last couple of weeks has been about politics and the politics of humanitarian aid,” East said. “Hopefully we’ve moved beyond that to say: ‘Let’s just help the people.”

Making the first visit to Myanmar by a UN secretary general in more than four decades, Ban held talks with Than Shwe and later told reporters that he had agreed to let in all foreign aid workers.

“He has agreed to allow all aid workers, regardless of nationalities,” the UN chief said.

Asked if he thought it was a major breakthrough in the three-week stand off, Ban said: “Yes, I think so.”

The international aid organization CARE said the announcement “could be a turning point in the aid response.”

“CARE has several emergency experts ready to deploy to Myanmar to provide their assistance to the people in need,” CARE’s Myanmar country director Brian Agland said in a press statement.

Rebecca Gustafson, a spokeswoman with the US government’s relief arm said the news sounded positive, but wanted to know more.

“Obviously it sounds like great news. We just want to know what it means,” she said.

The US and France have naval vessels in nearby waters laden with relief supplies, but Myanmar has refused to let them in — and it was not immediately clear if that situation would change.

PRC minister says radiation sources found after quake

AGENCIES, BEIJING AND CHENGDU, CHINA
Saturday, May 24, 2008, Page 1

China has found what it termed 50 "hazardous sources of radiation" because of last week's earthquake, a senior official said yesterday, although he insisted the situation was under control.

But Chinese Vice Environment Minister Wu Xiaoqing (吳曉青) said there had been no accidental releases of radiation.

“Thirty-five of the radiation sources have been recovered, and the location of another 15 has been confirmed, but they have not yet been recovered,” Wu told a news conference in Beijing.

“Three are buried in rubble and another 12 are in dangerous buildings, which staff cannot go into,” he added. “At present, tests from the scene show that there has yet to be an accidental release of radiation.”

The disaster area is home to China’s chief nuclear weapons research lab in Mianyang, as well as several secretive atomic sites, but no nuclear power stations.

Eleven days after the 7.9-magnitude quake shook the province of Sichuan, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, relief workers and ordinary residents are now focused on reconstruction.

The known death toll from the quake already exceeds 55,000, but more bodies are expected to be found as the debris from the dozens of flattened cities, towns and villages is cleared.

A top provincial official said China would need to rebuild whole towns and villages from scratch to rehouse the millions displaced by the quake, a task which could take three years.

Some towns in the earthquake zone in the southwest of the country would need to be relocated altogether because the terrain is not safe, officials have said.

The rainy season, due within weeks, is adding urgency to their work. The government’s main concern is that aftershocks and heavy rain could cause secondary disasters such as flashfloods and landslides.

“The rebuilding work faces a lot of difficulty in the region, where the mountains have been shaken loose in the earthquake and there have been more than 7,000 aftershocks,” Sichuan Vice Governor Li Chengyun (李成雲) told a news conference in Beijing.

Relief workers are also concerned that poor hygiene could cause disease outbreaks. Li said this was a “peak period for outbreaks of diseases,” describing the situation as very grim.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will travel to Yingxiu, the epicenter of the quake, today, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said.

The foreign ministry said it was not immediately clear which Chinese leader would accompany Ban to the disaster area.

How quickly the world forgets Tibet

Saturday, May 24, 2008, Page 8

Last week, the Dalai Lama embarked on an international tour to keep the issue of Tibet alive ahead of the Olympics. His talks with leaders in Berlin, London, Canberra and elsewhere, which will continue through part of the Games, are aimed to maintain pressure on Beijing to address Tibetan discontent.

A degree of calm has returned to the region, but developments indicate that the storm continues — out of the public eye. Last month, the authorities tried 30 Tibetans in closed-door proceedings for their alleged roles in the protests that erupted in Lhasa in March, Human Rights Watch reported. Those sentenced were denied fair legal representation.

The regional government then paraded those 30 people at a public rally to announce their sentences — anywhere between three years and life in prison. Beijing proudly called this an “open court.”

As the weeks pass, more reports of secret trials will likely emerge as China makes public the sentences handed down against scores of demonstrators. Although Beijing has averred that the protesters instigated violence, its refusal to present evidence in open trials casts its charges in a dubious light.

Likewise, fresh arrests of apparently peaceful protesters indicate that the crackdown continues. Last week, Sichuan police told Radio Free Asia that “many” Tibetans had been detained in recent weeks. Three monks and 14 nuns were arrested in separate incidents last week alone.

Other reports indicate that authorities have stepped up “patriotic education” of Tibetan children, with the goal of teaching them to value Chinese culture above their own.

None of this is anything new. Arrests of dissidents and anyone else perceived as a threat weren’t uncommon in Tibet before the March protests and there is no reason to think that this would subside after the strongest show of local discontent in decades.

This is evident in the context of China’s growing intolerance of dissent around the country. At the National People’s Congress in March, Beijing revealed that arrests of “political criminals” hit an eight-year high last year. The violators include those who agitate for independence or autonomy, or petition against human rights violations.

As the Dalai Lama renews his efforts to highlight these and other disturbing developments, he will need to win strong support from key leaders to engage Beijing. But with China pressing countries to spurn the spiritual leader, governments will be loath to upset Zhongnanhai.

The Dalai Lama’s visit to Germany this week differed from a trip last fall in that he did not meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was abroad. The Tibetan spiritual leader in exile instead spoke at the Reichstag and met Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul. That sparked concern that Berlin may not be prepared to risk another falling-out with Beijing. Likewise, observers made much of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s decision this week to receive the Dalai Lama not at Downing Street but at Lambeth Palace, a subtle but telling signal.

How Berlin and other governments respond to the ongoing abuses in Tibet will be a crucial ingredient if progress is to be made. The people of Tibet have made their pain and frustration clear at enormous personal cost and are still suffering the ramifications. Without increased pressure on Beijing by the international community, they can do little more to secure the nominal freedoms China has granted them.

But the world’s attention span is short, as is the media’s. With news out of Tibet far less sensational than a few months ago, there is a risk that its plight will again drift out of the world’s consciousness.