Junta puts cyclone survivors in labour camps
People displaced by cyclone Nargis sit on the side of a road between the Pyapon township and Yangon. Credit: STR, Getty Images
Survivors of the Burma cyclone are reportedly being used as forced labour in government camps.
Following the devastation of Cyclone Nargis on May 2, the military forcibly relocated tens of thousands of survivors from the Irrawaddy Delta, including many who sought shelter in Buddhist monasteries -- the centre of unrest during protests against the junta last year.
Ko Hla Min, a 35-year-old farmer who lost nine relatives in the storm, claimed that those rounded up by soldiers around the devastated town of Bogalay were being used as work gangs.
"They have to break stones at the construction sites,'' he said. "They are paid $1 per day but are not provided with any food.''
A senior UN official said that he feared other survivors will shortly be moved back to the delta and used by the junta to plant the next rice crop in the coming weeks.
About 80,000 people sought sanctuary in schools and temples in the town of Labutta, which was left in ruins by the cyclone. Now, only about 20,000 are thought to remain after the military intervened.
The official toll of dead and missing is 70,000, although the Red Cross estimates the real number to be closer to 128,000.
Despite another two million still in dire need of emergency aid, the Burmese government repeatedly rejected calls to allow foreign relief workers to deliver food, clean drinking water, shelter and medicine.
Reconstruct
The 'New Light of Myanmar' newspaper, a government mouthpiece, said Burma can be rebuilt without outside help. "They will not rely too much on international assistance and will reconstruct the nation on [a] self-reliance basis,'' it stated.
Lord Malloch-Brown, a British foreign office minister, yesterday accused Burma's junta of turning a "deaf ear'' to the plight of their subjects. "Than Shwe [the ruling general] is not hearing the seriousness of the crisis,'' he said.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the United Nations would be organising an emergency summit in Asia to discuss the disaster. (© Daily Telegraph, London)
- Graeme Jenkins in Rangoon
