While the junta continues the slow suffocation of its own people by refusing to allow all available aid into cyclone-affected areas, the people of the Ayeyarwady delta have something else to be afraid of besides disease and slow death by hunger: They say that at night they can hear the voices of those who died in the storm crying for help.
The countless rumours floating into Yangon from Ayeyarwady Division are also a bit like ghosts: Many people are willing to believe in them without any evidence, while others take them with a grain of salt. But no seems to be able to prove anything either way.
The persistence of rumour over verifiable fact points out the absurdity of the junta's position on journalists: The government refuses to let foreign reporters into the country, and then they blame the foreign press for getting the details wrong. In any case, during the protests last September the junta ran propaganda notices calling the BBC "skyful liars" but from what I could see from inside the country, the BBC reports were getting it about 80pc right, while the state-run press was 100pc bullshit.
A quick rundown of a few of the rumours I've heard in the past few days:
During a tour of the delta following the cyclone, Minister of Forestry Brigadier General Thein Aung, who is responsible for coordinating relief efforts in the hard-hit Bogale area, told Tayza (a wealthy businessman with close ties to the junta) that the government should not worry about removing the large number of bodies in the water because "the fish will eat them".
All chocolate that has come into Myanmar aboard relief flights has been diverted to Naypyidaw to satisfy Than Shwe's sweet tooth, with the explanation that "poor people in the delta don't like chocolate."
Human traffickers have been coming down into the delta through Rakhine State to take orphaned children up to Bangladesh and India, for use as child prostitutes, unwilling organ donors, etc. Groups of up to 30 children at a time have been taken by people claiming that they will take good care of the kids. Without parents, and surrounded by people who are trying their hardest just to survive, the kids have no one to protect them from such predators.
The junta is giving relief aid only to ethnic Burmese Buddhists. If true, this would be to the detriment of the delta's significant population of ethnic Karen (Kayin), who make up anywhere from 25pc to more then 50pc of the region's population, depending on who you ask.
Many of these Karen are Christian (again, exact percentages are unavailable). The Karen are a sensitive issue for the junta: Through the 1970s the government was engaged in armed struggle with Karen guerrillas in the delta region, and the Myanmar army to this day launches frequent attacks against Karen villages near the Thai border.
And my favourite: On Saturday, May 17, a rumour was going around that the US Marines had landed on Hainggyi Island in southwestern Myanmar (where Nargis first made landfall) and were fighting the Myanmar army. This was a bit of wishful thinking: Myanmar is one of the few countries left in the world whose population would overwhelmingly support an invasion from the US.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
A neighbour of mine in Yangon has a theory about why soldiers were kept off the streets in the immediate aftermath of cyclone Nargis. He thinks the government, fully aware of the anger that people might be feeling about the lack of warning about the storm, didn't want the army and civilians working together to clear the streets, lest some of the ire felt by the people rub off on young, impressionable soldiers.
But the army apparently didn't want to be upstaged by Buddhist monks either. The day after the cyclone, monks from a monastery in Kyeemyindaing township went out to help people remove trees. Soldiers who had been stationed outside the monastery since last September's anti-junta protests told them to go back inside. The monks, determined to help the people in their neighbourhood, told the soldiers they would have to shoot them to stop them. In this instance, perhaps in the absence of directives from superiors, the soldiers lowered their guns and let them work.
The lack of meaningful cooperation between monks and soldiers was apparent elsewhere. Near the east gate of Shwedagon Pagoda a friend of mine saw a group of army recruits working to dismember a tree that had crashed to the ground near a guard post. Directly across the street some monks were removing a tree that had fallen in front of a small monastery. The groups worked entirely independently, neither offering to help the other, neither even acknowledging the other's existence. It was as if they were operating in two completely different worlds.
The interaction between monks and soldiers in Myanmar is, of course, more complicated than this scene suggests. Many families have some sons who are monks, and some who are soldiers. Most Buddhist men spend at least some time in a monastery when they are young, so nearly every soldiers has donned the robes of novicehood at one time or another.
Overshadowing this reality is the junta itself, which insists on seeing the people of the country as the enemy – not as a group of people to protect, but as a seething mass of bodies to repress or cajole into submission (thus censorship and propaganda). Common soldiers, mostly from poor families, fall into this category as well. There were many stories last September about young soldiers who refused to fire on protestors until their commanding officers threatened to shoot them on the spot for disobeying orders.
By mid-week following the cyclone, there were several military work crews removing debris from the streets of Yangon – still not as many as one would hope from an army of more than 400,000, but they could be seen working in some areas of the city.
On Banyar Dala Street in Mingalar Taung Nyunt township the appearance of the army to clear trees from in front of the local bus stop was even greeted by cheers and laughter by neighbourhood residents, who emerged from their houses to exchange tea and cigarettes with the young soldiers. Now if only they would start exchanging some ideas about how to get rid of a government that has proven itself to be worse than useless in the face of disaster, maybe some real progress would be made in Myanmar.
But the army apparently didn't want to be upstaged by Buddhist monks either. The day after the cyclone, monks from a monastery in Kyeemyindaing township went out to help people remove trees. Soldiers who had been stationed outside the monastery since last September's anti-junta protests told them to go back inside. The monks, determined to help the people in their neighbourhood, told the soldiers they would have to shoot them to stop them. In this instance, perhaps in the absence of directives from superiors, the soldiers lowered their guns and let them work.
The lack of meaningful cooperation between monks and soldiers was apparent elsewhere. Near the east gate of Shwedagon Pagoda a friend of mine saw a group of army recruits working to dismember a tree that had crashed to the ground near a guard post. Directly across the street some monks were removing a tree that had fallen in front of a small monastery. The groups worked entirely independently, neither offering to help the other, neither even acknowledging the other's existence. It was as if they were operating in two completely different worlds.
The interaction between monks and soldiers in Myanmar is, of course, more complicated than this scene suggests. Many families have some sons who are monks, and some who are soldiers. Most Buddhist men spend at least some time in a monastery when they are young, so nearly every soldiers has donned the robes of novicehood at one time or another.
Overshadowing this reality is the junta itself, which insists on seeing the people of the country as the enemy – not as a group of people to protect, but as a seething mass of bodies to repress or cajole into submission (thus censorship and propaganda). Common soldiers, mostly from poor families, fall into this category as well. There were many stories last September about young soldiers who refused to fire on protestors until their commanding officers threatened to shoot them on the spot for disobeying orders.
By mid-week following the cyclone, there were several military work crews removing debris from the streets of Yangon – still not as many as one would hope from an army of more than 400,000, but they could be seen working in some areas of the city.
On Banyar Dala Street in Mingalar Taung Nyunt township the appearance of the army to clear trees from in front of the local bus stop was even greeted by cheers and laughter by neighbourhood residents, who emerged from their houses to exchange tea and cigarettes with the young soldiers. Now if only they would start exchanging some ideas about how to get rid of a government that has proven itself to be worse than useless in the face of disaster, maybe some real progress would be made in Myanmar.
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