Rumours

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.