Local Corruption Hampering Burma Recovery Efforts

In the midst of a massive humanitarian crisis in Burma in which 1.5 million people are at risk of dying from disease, local government officials in Rangoon have been selling aid and bribing residents in order to turn a profit, according to sources in Rangoon. It has been eight days since Cyclone Nargis wiped out entire villages along the Irrawaddy delta and left Rangoon in shambles, but the ruling junta has prevented relief efforts from barely making a dent in the recovery process.

Government officials have stolen donations of rice, cooking oil and diesel and sold them on the black market, a businessman in Rangoon said on Sunday. In several townships around the major city, the government announced that it would provide a certain amount of rice and cooking oil to each household, but local township officers were found refusing families their quotas and instead selling the goods on the black market.

"Most community heads and their staffs are doing good biz in leading distribution of aids, like petrol, oil with cheap price/ but they store a lot/ they steal a lot," the businessman wrote.
The businessman, whose 15-month old baby has a case of diarrhea due to lack of clean drinking water, said the officers denied his family its quota as well.

He sent his information to a contact in Thailand via Google Chat because the junta can censor email from the government-service providers and from Gmail. Even natural disasters are politically sensitive in Burma, and the junta has sent Burmese to prison in the past for giving information to the international press.

Rangoon residents have also found packages of salt from Thailand in markets and have assumed that foreign countries intended to give out the supplies freely as aid. "We are not sure but feeling bad because we know things like that happens all our life," said a humanitarian worker who lives in Rangoon. "Drugs from UNICEF [were available to] buy from the market when we were young."

This cannot be verified, though it reveals the people's lack of trust in government officials to forgo personal profit for the sake of helping survivors of a natural disaster.

The Burmese government, which rules the country with an iron fist, has also used the cyclone as an opportunity to improve it own propaganda machine. The junta, which has forbid foreign governments from distributing aid directly, has also prevented residents from donating directly to survivors, according to the woman who works for a humanitarian organization. Residents must donate to a government-backed group, called the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), which then distributes the aid as if it came from them.

"There were some people coming to the rescue tent and distribute rice," she wrote in an email.

"The local authority stopped them and asked to distribute through them and the donors left."
The junta controls all media inside the country, and state television has shown image after image of soldiers giving out aid to victims.

Despite the utter poverty in Rangoon and inability of most survivors to afford basics like food and shelter, local authorities in some townships have also started collecting 5000 Kyats from each household to give to the ministry of electrical power, according to the businessman. He said families on his street were forced to collect all of the money, about 1,000,000 Kyats, and give it to the electric department in order to have their street's electricity repaired. The cyclone wiped out most electricity in the city.

Electricity is critical in Rangoon because most homes rely on it to pump water into a private tank. If there is no electricity, people cannot access clean water and are at risk of disease.

People in Rangoon have expressed outrage and disbelief at the junta's decision to manipulate the situation for its own gain as well as for its focus on Saturday's referendum on a draft constitution instead of the relief process, its inability to clean up the city and provide needed services, and its refusal to allow foreign aid workers into the country.

However, the humanitarian worker also said some people in Rangoon believe the government propaganda and think that the disaster is not severe and that the government is doing its best to help the people.

She wrote via Google Chat: "Ppl r dying n some ppl still think situation is not bad."

Comments

[zitlight73]

With fighter escort the UN should send in cargo planes and parachute food and medicine in to where ever it is needed and to hell with those tinhorn generals, if they try anything stupid take them out. If Burma had oilfields Bush would have no problems invading.

[Chavez08]

Is it corruption hampering efforts or is it the fact the Burma leaders are being careful not to have Reagan Capitalism shoved down their throats via the "Foreign Aid Trojan Horse"?

[NABNYC]

Of course the numbers are different, but in all other respects this reminds me so much of New Orleans: the government sat back while people died and failed to provide relief, to allow water, food and medical assistance to reach survivors. Offers from other countries to provide assistance (Cuba offered to send medical teams to New Orleans) were rejected by the nation's government for whatever bizarre reasons.

The relief that was eventually delivered (millions of dollars in U.S. aid to New Orleans) was grabbed by government cronies and insiders who grossly overbilled the government for clean-up, trucked in illegal immigrants to work for slave wages instead of hiring local people, lined their pockets, and presumably kicked back a big chunk of money to the national government.

I hope the people of Myanmar get some help. But it appears to me there are disgraceful similarities between our own government and theirs, so maybe the answer is to throw both governments out of power.

[Keith23]

GREAT post by ms. win. provides a lot of insight into what is happening in a country where so little information can be gleaned. this blogger obviously has some excellent inside sources. although i must say, the overall conclusion leaves me very disheartened for the burmese people.

[Kalima]

I was furious to read today that this corrupt government is taking hold of aid supplies destined
for the people who need it so much. Also their delay in processing visas means a backlog of
planes waiting you take off around many countries all over the world. I am reminded of the
regime of N.Korea who care little about their citizens and when aid finally got through, it
was snatched for the Korean military, while the people died in the streets like flies.
China supposedly has some influence with this secretive junta, so what are they doing to
help?
Again the people who care are helpless to help. Will the suffering ever end for the citizens
unfortunate enough to live or be born into chaos?
To the peaceful people of Burma, we hear you and do so wish, we could do more.

[Kalima]

Sorry that should read.....waiting to take off, but this really makes me see red.

[watchingthings]

This junta has beat...killed...run off the Monks from the Monasteries. These monasteries should be used to hold this junta under arrest while court is set up. There is only one way to deal with these "people" who overthrow a government and then pillage the country while terrorising the population. If there ever was a good example where a regime needs to be removed to save the country.....Burma is it!

[kawika]

Sounds like Katrina to me...We still haven't fixed it.

[KOisGod]

Makes ya want to write a big check, doesn't it?

The more I see of humanity, the more I look forward to that big wayward astroid that has its cooridinates set to - third stone from the sun.

[loki]

Sounds to me like the same US officials who are over seeing the relief and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, are in charge in Myanmar.

[Trittydi]

So it's just like America?
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