Burma blasts donors for failing to live up to aid commitments
State-run media criticised donors for only pledging up to $150 million (€96.8m) — a far cry from the $11bn the junta said it needed to rebuild.
The Myanma Ahlin newspaper, a government mouthpiece, said cyclone victims from the hardest-hit areas could get by without foreign handouts.
“People from the Irrawaddy delta can survive on their own, even without bars of chocolate donated by the international community,” it said, adding they can live on “fresh vegetables that grow wild in the fields and on protein-rich fish from the rivers“.
The reference to chocolate bars appeared to be metaphorical. No aid agency is known to be distributing them, and they would not be practical in the tropical heat. Paul Risley of the UN’s World Food Programme, which is directing the effort for emergency food supplies, said his agency provides rice, ready-to-eat meals of rice and beans and high-energy biscuits.
The newspaper commentary also slammed an unnamed monetary institution, saying its refusal to help cyclone survivors was “an act of inhumanity“.
World Bank managing director Juan Jose Daboub said last week that the bank will not extend any financial aid or loans to Burma’s because it has not paid its debts for a decade.
The article said the same countries that criticised Burma for not opening its door to aid workers were being stingy with relief aid. It appeared to single out the United States without naming it.
Despite the blistering rhetoric, the UN reported that dozens of visas had been approved for international relief workers to enter the country.
It said more foreigners were also being allowed into the delta, which had been off-limits to Westerners since the storm left 1.5 million homeless.
The storm left an estimated 2.4 million people in desperate need of food, shelter and medical care. Burma’s government says the cyclone killed 78,000 people and left another 56,000 missing.
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