With 100,000 reported dead in Burma (Myanmar) from Cyclone Nargis, survivors need YOUR help, RIGHT NOW, so that more lives will not be lost.
At least 21,793 people were killed in the Irrawaddy Delta by the cyclone and more than 40,000 are missing. This delta of the Irrawaddy River is Myanmar’s "rice bowl." Virtually all of their food stores come from fishing and the rice paddies. Now they have no sustainable food supply. With global food shortages, the survivors may starve to death. Also keep in mind that waterborne bacteria and infection will continue to kill people for months after the cyclone.
MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders) is in Burma.
Three days after Cyclone Nargis affected several areas of Myanmar, causing the deaths of a reported 10,000 people and severe material damage, large parts of the population remain without drinking water, food, and shelter.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams have so far been able to assess all areas in the townships of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, and are in the process of trying to assess areas outside of Yangon that we suspect may have been harder hit. For humanitarian actors it is essential to have unrestricted and immediate access to all affected populations and regions in order to assess needs and react accordingly.
MSF teams in Yangon began setting up a first emergency response, including distribution of food and plastic sheeting, and water chlorination. In Daala and Twante, two townships with a total population of 300,000, MSF teams witnessed the destruction of 80 percent of houses in certain pockets and up to meter-high flood waters. Under these circumstances infectious diseases such as cholera can spread easily. In these two areas MSF is organizing a first emergency response by distributing food, water, and first necessity items for 5,000 people.
5,000? Do the math, peeps. There are a million homeless, 100,000 dead and at least 70,000 missing.
Burma's brutal and corrupt military junta failed to warn the people, failed to evacuate any areas, and suppressed freedom of communication so that Burmese people didn't know the storm was coming when the rest of the world did.
Now the government is failing to respond to the disaster and obstructing international aid organizations.
Humanitarian relief is urgently needed, but Burma's government could easily delay, divert or misuse any aid. Today the International Burmese Monks Organization, including many leaders of the democracy protests last fall, launched a new effort to provide relief through Burma's powerful grass roots network of monasteries—the most trusted institutions in the country and currently the only source of housing and support in many devastated communities. (Source: MoveOn.
Now, the government has slowed the urgent process of providing humanitarian relief--so Avaaz is raising funds for the International Burmese Monks Organization and related groups, which will transmit funds directly to monasteries in affected areas.
In many of the worst-hit areas, the monasteries are the only source of shelter and food for Burma's poorest people. They have been on the front lines of the aid effort since the storm struck. Other forms of aid could be delayed, diverted or manipulated by the Burmese government--but the monks are the most trusted and reliable institution in the country.
Please, do not make emergency humanitarian aid contigent upon making the victims believe in your God, your politics or your country. Don't make it conditional as President Bush has:
The United States announced it might send 250,000 worth of aid, but said the shipment was conditional on an American disaster response team being allowed into the country as well.
In making the announcement Monday in Washington, the first lady, Laura Bush, said she was concerned that Myanmar would not accept the aid. She also called the military government "very inept." (New York Times, dated 5/7/08 and went on to state: "The response to this cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta's failures to meet its people's basic needs." (Christian Science Monitor)
Laura Bush, I am so damn proud to know you learned nothing from Hurricane Katrina, (not, as you would have it, Hurricane Korina). silly me; empathy and compassion are not in your repertoire.
"I’m going to leave tomorrow for Crawford, for Jenna’s wedding, and I wanted to be able to make a statement about Burma before I left," the first lady told reporters.
(Crooks and Liars)
Mrs. Bush, your priorities disgust me to no end.
Do we really need Laura Bush's "diplomacy" lessons to do the right thing (that she herself is too "inept to do?")
I submit to you the answer is: "HELL, NO!"
Relief agencies known to be in Burma (Myanmar):
Donate directly to the Burmese monks.
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders.
Please, please help them.
I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper." --Barack Obama
Please see srkp23's excellent diary from earlier today if you missed it: Who Cares?